Waking Up | Barriers, part 3

A third trend I see in the obstacles I've encountered is probably the greatest and widest spread, though it appears to be the simplest to solve. It is simply that of the habits of both supplier and consumer. It is apparent to me how rare an occasion it is when a customer asks in depth questions that the seller is caught off guard and thrown a little bit. Neither side is used to this level of interaction which makes it very easy to slip into typical practices and not follow though.

My most recent example of this, and I freely admit the blame falls on both sides, is when I initiated contact with "Harold the Coffee Man", founder of Brownstone Beans in Brooklyn. I heard of Harold when I walked by Urban Spring on DeKalb Ave in Fort Greene and noticed their chalk-board sign pushing "Locally Brewed Coffee - Roasted Just Down the Street!" Turns out, Harold is a local guy who, indeed, imports beans from Nicaragua and elsewhere and began roasting them right there in his brownstone apartment to distribute to a few coffee houses and businesses. I did some research and called him up, and to his credit, Harold called me back a few days later and enthusiastically chatted to me about his beginnings, his day job as a teacher, and his new facility in Greenpoint. He told me he had a shipment coming in a few days and would let me know so I could come by and check out his operation.

And I haven't heard from him. I left another message for him once, but haven't followed up again. He is clearly in his routine and busy with an end of a school year and his business, and I'm busy with my day job and making inquiries as often as possible to broaden my scope. It's so much easier to just go about our day-to-day, even as a local entrepreneur and someone dedicated to making connections, than to pursue it. If we can't even make the connection happen, then it should be no surprise that most of us don't even bother trying.

Industry Policy | Barriers, part 2

Next in this three-part post on Barriers is the more obvious, though still naively unexpected: the barriers put in place by the manufacturer.

About a year or so ago, I attended a Wesleyan University Alumni event with a friend (she's an alum, not me) and was introduced to the host -- Brooklyn Industries founder Lexy Funk. Hoping to use this connection, I asked my friend to contact the alumni association and try to get in touch with Lexy for me. In the meantime, I sent emails to the general info address and crossed my fingers. I was thrilled when I got an email back from Lexy, commending my project and offering to put me in touch with someone who could help me out with meeting some folks who manufacture tee-shirts right here in Brooklyn. Awesome. After a few back and forths with the woman she set me up with in consumer relations, she told me she would look into it and get back to me with the information I requested. I waited a week and wrote again. Nothing.

Then today I got a very brief email informing me that it is their policy "not to disclose their vendors", but that a particular shoulder bag (with a link to the website) was manufactured locally. And that was it. I've let the email sit out of frustration, but I intend to write back and ask if I can at least meet with her, and let her explain to me why this policy is in place. I have no desire to go in looking for bad working conditions or inspect the machinery, which is probably why this obstacle is in place, but I do want to see where the product comes from and who spends their days making it before I buy it.

Through the Grapevine | Barriers, part 1

I began this experiment with the very real desire to focus on something positive, making personal connections and breaking down distances between suppliers and the consumer, rather than to focus on the negative aspects of a consumption-based society. I was also somewhat naive in thinking that all it would take was some research and some eagerness to bridge those distances. It is still very early in the experiment, and I'm sure a number of tends will begin to emerge from the folks that I meet and the ones I don't. One that's beginning to be very clear is that there are some very real barriers in place, and that they are worth exploring as much as the connections are.

This revelation came while talking with Emmanuel Boyer, a member of a French wine-making family living here in New York. Emmanuel grew up on his family's vineyard in southern France, a vineyard called La Croix-Belle that the family has worked "forever". (The house on the label? That's the house he grew up in. His bedroom is the window on the top left.) As a child he picked grapes with the hired hands and, when the winery went machined, watched as the processes were slowly perfected. He and his brother were the first to leave the village and pursue other degrees - his in engineering, his brother's in veterinary medicine, but he is still deeply involved in every decision from what varieties of grapes to grow and blend to what the labels and packaging of new wines will look like. He is the company's representative to the United States, and will return to run the family business again in just a few years.

What shocked me, however, was that as intrinsically involved in the business as Emmanuel is, he doesn't even have a real sense of where his wines are sold in New York. He explained to me the built-in state-mandated separations between grower and consumer. Wineries are required to go through an importer, who in turn is required to use a local distributer, who then decides what restaurants and wine shops to market to. And only at that level is the consumer able to interact with the product. On the rare occasion, he is able to be involved with tastings set up by the distributor for their marketing teams, but rarely directly to the consumer. And when we called him (he is a close friend of a coworker), he was hard pressed to recommend a restaurant where he knew they would have his wine. We did find some, the Champs Des Lys and it was wonderful, and he did know that Astor wines carried at least one of his reds (which we found and bought several bottles of). But with these sort of frustrating barriers set up in front of the supplier, it is no wonder I'm facing challenges from this side.

Rolling With It | Cross country saved by country boy

Twenty-nine hours of driving in two-and-a-half days. It's a little nutty. "Wacky", as my mother called it. But we did it, all in the name of dedication to The Project. Taking off from NYC Friday afternoon in our trusty Zipcar Toyota Matrix, Joe and I headed for Loretto, Kentucky, to visit the Maker's Mark Distillery. After a brief layover in Pittsburgh with Kelly and Bill (who generously offered a couple of strangers from CouchSurfing.com a place to sleep amongst their menagerie), we arrived in Kentucky Saturday afternoon.

We expected the distillery to be fairly near a major roadway, given the amount of trucking that must go in and out of their properties.... but no. The Maker's Mark distillery is deep, deep in the heart of blue grass, cattle raising, Confederate flag country, many green-hilled miles from the nearest interstate. Just as we were giving up on the winding one-way narrow cart paths, we rounded a corner to find hundreds of cars pulling up amongst a black-shingled, red-shuttered compound. The mixed emotions felt by actually finding the place and having it swarmed with Maker's fans aside (it was their annual Ambassador's Weekend -- fan club meeting and marketing, really), it was a challenge to get anything more than the anamatronic tours and demonstrations.

When we finally snuck away from the pimento cheese finger sandwiches and headed towards some buildings not on the tour, we found ourselves approaching a tall, burly fellow in a brown MM sweatshirt, work boots, and well-worn cowboy hat. A Godsend.



Jude is a barrel-roller. He is one of about 18 guys who rolls empty barrels off trucks from the warehouse into the cistern, where they are filled with whiskey ready to become bourbon, and then rolls the full barrels back onto another truck to go back to the warehouse. 360 barrels a day, each one 150 pounds empty, 500+ pounds full. But as Jude put it, "It's not so bad, you let the whiskey do the work."

Given that all of the Maker's Mark Bourbon in the world is distilled in Loretto, and that Jude is one of only eighteen people who move these barrels, there's a high likelihood that much of the Maker's I've consumed in bars or at home, and will continue to consume, was aged in barrels he's rolled.

Hitting the Bottle...er... Road

And I almost forgot -- I'm leaving in an hour to drive to Loretto, Kentucky, to visit the Maker's Mark Bourbon Distillery! It's the annual "Ambassador's Weekend" and sure to be stories. Cheers!

Making an Impact | Environmentally, socially, personally

The people who work for Seventh Generation are really remarkable. In one week, I had email exchanges with Chrystie in Consumer Relations, Lee in executive administration, and Jeff and Jay, Executive and Senior Vice Presidents, respectively, of Operations. And it's not that I was getting the run-around, I was getting positive feedback on my project and attempts to get me in touch with the right people to answer my questions. I received a phone call yesterday from Jay LeDuc - SVP of Operations, remember - who spoke with me for half an hour about the company's manufacturing processes, their vendor partners and quality assurance teams, and personnel policies. He spoke with me about strict guidelines when finding factories to make their products, influencing the manufacturing standards of other companies, reducing the carbon footprint by moving operations closer to their consumers, and the pleasure of watching an industry that they helped establish twenty years ago become one of global interest.

Jay went into great detail with his responses and took the call to "just some guy in Brooklyn", as my friends put it, quite seriously. He pointed me to their annual environmental responsibility reporting, and invited me up to their headquarters in Vermont where he'd introduce me to the quality assurance team as well. Though I have yet to shake his hand and talk face-to-face, Jay certainly gave me individual attention and personal connection. The fact that he works for one of the most socially and environmentally responsible and forward-thinking businesses out there, well that feels pretty good too.

Daily Decisions

I've been asked how much this project is affecting my every day life. Are there things I used to buy that now I don't? Is this easy or hard? Have I cheated yet?

The honest answer is that I'm finding it affects everything. Generally, I haven't sacrificed anything major (a cup of coffee while out and about, using hair product since I've run out) but it has changed how I buy things, and I've definitely started making substitutions. I make coffee at home everyday, with coffee from the Co-op. I buy lunch for the week from Scott at the Body & Soul booth at the farmer's market and keep it in the refrigerator at work. Last weekend I had friends over to my apartment for both brunch and a pot-luck dinner to avoid carelessly eating out while still maintaining a social life. I drink only beer from Brooklyn Brewery. It is constantly on my mind; add in dozens of emails and phone calls to make arrangements to visit manufacturing plants and local entrepreneurs, and it's almost a full time effort.

I've made an exception once: our friends in a band (shout out to Kind Monitor) threw a birthday party for my boyfriend at MonkeyTown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I had no opportunity to eat before I arrived and knew we'd be out drinking afterwards, and it was 9pm on a Friday night–not a time to try to get in to meet the chef at a busy venue. So I allowed an exception (rather than trying to rationalize) and enjoyed the burger. With a Brooklyn Lager.

Progress | Further ahead, further apart

I've had some really wonderful exchanges with folks at Seventh Generation, Tom's of Maine, and Brooklyn Industries this weekend/this morning. It seems the project strikes a very human chord and people are willing to help me make connections. It will be great to make these associations.

It's truly been eye-opening, though, to see how the world is no longer organized in a way which this is easy -- and certainly not expected. Long gone is the possibility of going to the market and meeting the craftsmen who's labor created the goods (the city's few Farmer's Markets are the rare exception). It's now a matter of a company rep deciding whether my requests are "Press" related, or "Customer Service", and of course, even "local" goods are manufactured all over the continent. Most of my successes so far are coming from connections through friends or the neighborhoods I spend time in.

Wood Fired Up | Making pizza connections

I've always enjoyed going to local, family-owned restaurants, but never had the impetus to really find out about the family themselves. Tonight I went out to what had become a new favorite in the neighborhood (actually that same place that I was taken out to that first night that felt like such a failure) with a new attitude and new drive to learn more. Lucali is a romantic wood-oven pizza spot hidden on Henry Street in Carroll Gardens. Serving only pizza and calzones, you squeeze into candle-lit wood tables in the front of the restaurant -- and only the front because the back is the open "kitchen" where owner/chef Mark stretches dough and rolls it out with wine bottles on wide oak tables in front of the wood-fire oven.

According to Alex, our server tonight, Lucali was opened up a year ago last Columbus Day (that makes it a year-and-a-half old) by Mark and his wife and their friends and family. Alex, a neighborhood girl and friend of the couple, is one of about 8 servers who have been there from the start and rotate nights. She and the others hadn't worked together prior to opening the shop, but had faith in Lucali and their friends. Rumor has it the place used to be Mark's grandfather's candy shop, and that the couple just had a baby. It's all hearsay, but I hope to get back in and talk to Mark himself. If anyone from the Lucali family stops by, please say hello!