Yesterday we reported on the upcoming opening of Pizza Fusion, “the most environmentally friendly restaurant in America.” But we lamented some notable buzzword absences from their online materials — namely “local” and “sustainable.” Enter Ashley Rathgeber, purchaser for Pizza Fusion, who is working singlehandedly to prove the old Kevin Costner adage, If you blog it, they will comment!
I wanted to clarify where we source our ingredients from. We source organic and all-natural products for our restaurants that are grown and harvested with sustainable methods. The organic farms that we support promote biodiversity and produce nutrient rich and flavorful ingredients for our menu items. We also try to source as local as possible, setting up distribution regionally to incorporate seasonally grown organic produce and ingredients.
Soothing words, but can we get anything more specific? We got Ashley on the phone, and she told us that while Pizza Fusion normally doesn’t finalize any purchasing relationships until 8-10 weeks before open (some backwards math should place the Naperville opening in mid-November or later, then), she has been talking to Goodness Greenness, a Chicago-based organic produce distributor (the largest in the midwest!). No contracts have been signed yet, but things are looking good. For Pizza Fusion and, we’ll grudgingly admit, for us.
Coming Soon: Pizza Fusion Is Greener Than Thou [previously]
[Photo: A Pizza Fusion pizza prepared with love by Ashley (could it be the same one!??!?!!), via bigdavedeluxe’s Flickr]
