VIDEO: ‘Farm to Table’ Now Evolving Into ‘Farm to Counter’

NEW YORK — In a new installment of his video series with Convenience Store News parent company, Stagnito Business Information + Edgell Communications, Phil Lempert spotlights Dig Inn, a chain of fast-casual restaurants in New York City that recently announced it’s opening its own farm.

Dig Inn founder Adam Eskin said in an interview with Fast Company that the move is designed for empowerment and is the next step in the evolution of the chain, which calls itself "farm to counter." Dig Inn, which currently has 11 locations in Manhattan, serves the same local, organic ingredients as more upscale farm-to-table restaurants, but at lunch counter prices, according to Lempert.

Eskin doesn’t expect to grow everything his restaurants need on the upstate New York farm. Rather, as Lempert cites, the idea is to use the farm mostly as a "living lab" to train its chefs and experiment with organic agricultural techniques and aquaculture in a greenhouse.

Dig Inn plans to open five to seven more restaurants this year, including expanding to Boston. Its chefs and cooks actually cook everything from scratch, a big differentiator from other fast-casual or fast-food restaurants. 

Lempert is founder of The Lempert Report, a food trends publication, and SupermarketGuru.com, a leading online resource for food safety, products, trends and shopping tips that attracts more than nine million visitors annually. 

As CSNews Online previously reported, Lempert and Stagnito + Edgell forged an exclusive strategic alliance that allows Lempert to provide content and programming to multiple CPG retail media brands within the Stagnito + Edgell portfolio, including Convenience Store News and Progressive Grocer. 

Click above to watch the video.