Located in beautiful Burlington, Vermont, food truck company Farmers & Foragers utilize locally-sourced and sustainable ingredients to provide amazing food and service. Founders Lauren and Sol were both working in the restaurant industry when they decided to start up the food truck company in 2015. As advocates of a community-sourced society, Lauren and Sol work closely with local providers to source the highest quality and freshest ingredients for their incredible menu.
Celebrating & Supporting Local
Lauren and Sol believe that everyone benefits from eating local. When sourcing ingredients, they work closely with local growers, fishmongers, foragers, and purveyors, which supports the local economy and ensures the freshest and highest quality ingredients.
In addition to boosting the local economy, sourcing food locally is great for helping the environment. Transporting food from farms to kitchens usually requires trucks, planes, and even cargo ships, to make long distance trips, resulting in increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are harmful for the environment as they disrupt ecosystems, create air pollution, and contribute to climate change. By sourcing food locally, the distance food has to travel is greatly reduced, which reduces overall emissions. Locally-sourced ingredients can be better for you too: due to the reduced time in between harvest and consumption, ingredients that don’t have far to travel tend to be higher in nutrients!
As their name suggests, Farmers & Foragers take a unique approach to ingredient sourcing with foraging. A popular practice in Vermont, foraging is the act of searching for edible food in the wilderness. What some like to think of as a combination of hiking and gardening, foraging enables folks to explore the natural world in a new way and connect to their primal instincts – be sure to learn what’s safe before you taste!
There are a wide variety of mushrooms to forage in Vermont, including chicken and hen of the wood, morrells, lobster, and lions mane, just to name a few. At Farmers & Foragers, foraging is a way to connect with the local environment and the local community. It isn’t uncommon for local foragers to show up unexpectedly to the food truck with large bags of foraged mushrooms, which Lauren and Sol use to create new menu items or to add to their delicious menu staple, the Vermont Cheesesteak.
Lauren and Sol are also avid foragers themselves and often visit a prolific spot just a short walk from their property during spring ramp season. This unique way of sustainable ingredient sourcing is just another way that Farmers & Foragers showcases the amazing local ingredients that Vermont has to offer.
Sustainable Sourcing & Operating
In addition to community development, sustainability is one of the core values at Farmers & Foragers and is woven into all aspects of operations. They strive to reduce their overall footprint by sourcing all ingredients locally when possible and from individuals that follow sustainable practices. This means that animals are sourced from local farms where they are fed natural and sustainable diets and that the seafood from the fishmonger is caught in a sustainable and mindful manner.
Lauren and Sol also have a property where they grow their own food and have nine of their own raised garden beds, a green house, fruit trees, and keep their own bees! This results in an amazing little biome in the summer months and in early fall Lauren and Sol collect the honey to use on the truck and in the kitchen.
In terms of operations, Lauren and Sol are committed to reducing waste and closing the loop as best they can. With different practices in place in order to sustainably manage byproducts, they limit their environmental footprint and support local ecosystems. For their spent fryer oil, they partner with Black Bear Biodiesel, a waste cooking oil collection service that collects and upcycles spent fryer oil into clean-burning biodiesel for resale (pretty awesome!) When it comes to food waste, the F&F team are avid composters and repurpose food scraps and meat fats to make rich stocks to use for future dishes.
Where You Can Find Them
The team at Farmers & Foragers love to provide customers with amazing food, service, and overall experience. Community is at the heart of everything at Farmers & Foragers and they truly love to be a part of Vermont’s vibrant food culture.
The Farmers & Foragers food truck can be found at the Burlington Harbor Marina from May-October and at Spruce Peak from January-March. They also provide catering services year round.
The Farmers & Foragers Dockside menu features a variety of sandwiches, tacos, salads and sides, such as the Perch Tacos starring Lake Champlain perch filets and the Harvest Salad featuring Vermont Grafton clothbound cheddar. The Farmers & Foragers Catering menu features a more extensive selection to serve larger parties and events. Their menus rotate regularly depending on what’s available and what’s in season.
Farmers & Foragers has been on the receiving end of many awards including:
#1 Farm-to-table food destination in Vermont by Eater Montreal
2019’s Seven Daisies Winner for Best Food Truck of Vermont by Seven Days Newspaper
#1 Food Truck in Vermont by Where Traveler
You can find more information, including their menu on their website: https://vtfarmersandforagers.com/ & on Instagram at: @farmandforagevt
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