Q&A: ANA SORTUN & CHRIS KURTH

Q&A

ANA SORTUN & CHRIS KURTH

Meeting up with two local-food heroes in Massachusetts

Few couples have careers as sublimely synchronized as Ana Sortun and Chris Kurth. She’s a chef; he’s a farmer. They live just a stone’s throw from the 50 acres that make up Siena Farms, Kurth’s vegetable-growing operation in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Those veggies anchor the menus of Sortun’s Boston-area restaurants Oleana, Sofra, and Sarma. Her work, in turn, influences the 100-plus varieties of vegetables grown at Siena. We recently caught up with the couple to learn more about their unique partnership. —Amy Traverso

So how did a chef and a farmer meet and fall in love?

Ana: Chris was introduced to me when he was working at the Farm School in Athol, Massachusetts. They were looking for restaurants that would buy some of their vegetables, and Chris walked in one day with a bunch of spinach at a really, really bad time—right before [restaurant] “show time,” at 5 o’clock. But I’ve always had a soft spot for farmers, so I stopped what I was doing and looked at his spinach. It didn’t take long after that.

How did the pandemic change your businesses?

Chris: Pre-2020, about 40 percent of the farm’s veggies went to retail, 40 percent to our CSA program, and 20 percent to restaurants. Now, 75 percent of our crop goes out to our CSA subscribers.

One of our best experiences of the past year was feeling so appreciated by our customers. People cared really deeply about what was happening to farms and restaurants and other local businesses. I’m confident that a general concern for our neighbors will be one of the long-term lessons of this pandemic. I’m hoping it is.

You also launched a very successful communitysupported restaurant program, or “CSR,” that sold subscriptions to boxes of heat-and-eat foods from Oleana and Sofra. Tell us a little more about that.

Ana: It started with Maura Kilpatrick, my business partner at Sofra, trying to get some pies attached to the distribution system of Siena Farms’ “Gobble Box,” which is this enormous box of produce you can order with everything you’d need for Thanksgiving. As they worked on that, Chris and Rachel Orchard, his CSA manager, thought, Wow, we could really help the restaurants out. We live and breathe the CSA model through Siena Farms, so it wasn’t a stretch. The challenge was developing a production system, but we handed distribution over to the farm. It brought us a lot of stability, and it also gave us a sense of purpose. It demanded good, creative energy. Without it, I would’ve been laser-focused on how much money we were losing and all the negatives that every restaurant was experiencing.

Are you optimistic about the future of food?

Chris: I think it’s going to be hard for anyone to take anything for granted after this crazy year, including understanding the need to shorten the supply chains for food. We hope the “Buy Local” campaign has a lot more importance now for all of us.

TUNE IN FOR MORE

Check out co-host Amy Traverso’s tour and farm dinner with Chris and Ana on Weekends with Yankee season five.