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How Do You Know If A Restaurant Is Really Serving Locally Grown Food?

Customers picking strawberries at Stehly Farms in Valley Center on April 14, 2018.
Trish Watlington
Customers picking strawberries at Stehly Farms in Valley Center on April 14, 2018.
How Do You Know If A Restaurant Is Really Serving Locally Grown Food?
How Do You Know If A Restaurant Is Really Serving Locally Grown Food? GUESTS: Trish Watlington, founder, Farm To Fork San Diego Noel Stehly, co-owner, Stehly Farms Organics

Fraud in the farm to table movement is a thing.

A 2015 story in San Diego Magazine featured farmers who called out restaurants that falsely claimed to serve locally sourced food.

Finding true farm to table restaurants isn’t easy and that’s partly why Farm to Fork San Diego was created.

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The membership-based organization offers a directory of restaurants, bars and breweries committed to working with San Diego County farmers.

Trish Watlington, the former owner of the Red Door restaurant, created Farm to Fork San Diego. She personally verifies that each restaurant in the directory has an existing, ongoing relationship with at least one San Diego County farm. The project, now in its second year, has grown to include 21 restaurants, fishermen and other food-related businesses.

Farm to Fork Week is underway through September 16. Watlington and Noel Stehly, of Stehly Farm Organics, discuss their commitment to ethically sourced food, Wednesday on Midday Edtion.