Local Ingredients Matter: Journey of Food from Farm to Event Buffet

It started as a kitchen garden. Nine acres. A favor from her husband. Today, Green Door Gourmet is 350 acres of certified organic farmland on the Cumberland River — one of the largest organic operations in Tennessee — growing 80 kinds of fruits and vegetables, 80 flower varieties, and 25 specialty herbs, including Southern heirloom varieties that most event menus have never seen. Sylvia Harrelson Ganier is its President, and Chief Farm Operator (CFO). She is also the former chef and owner of CIBO, a Nashville restaurant she built before she ever picked up a trowel. She knows both sides of the table. On this episode of Eating at a Meeting LIVE, Sylvia talks about what it takes to feed a city — and what the meetings and events industry gets wrong about food sourcing. She is a past President of Les Dames d'Escoffier International's Nashville Chapter, a member of the James Beard Foundation, Chair of the Davidson County Agricultural Extension Board, and a speaker at the USDA Women in Agriculture convening. Her farm welcomes 85,000 visitors a year, including 5,000 school children who pick strawberries for the first time. The food on your event menu has a story. This episode is where it starts.