Farm-to-table
Despite the growth in the farm-to-table restaurants the movement has been met with some criticism. Critics argue the interest in knowing where your food comes from and ensuring it is locality sourced is just another food fad for millennials. Furthermore, the higher price point that many restaurants are forced to demand, given the higher costs of production and lower economies of scale, also make farm-to-table food less accessible for many people. The movement was originally closed tied to "tree-hugging elitists," who were able to afford farm-to-table food. Lastly, critics argue that the farm-to-table term is not fully understood by consumers. For example, foods advertised as farm-to-table are considered healthier regardless of actual nutritional content.
On the Table
On The Table is a social media amplified community listening program that is loosely organized, but not led, by community-based grant-making organizations in the United States. The core activity is the encouragement of individual hosts to invite a small group of people (6-12) to a conversation over food. All these conversations take place in any one community on a single day. Social media posts on that day create broad community awareness of the conversations and the topics discussed. Anyone can register to host and who they invite to their table is entirely up to them. Ideally those invited do not know each other well except for their connection to the host. There is no agenda or pre-determined outcome of the conversation except to catalog what was discussed and what actions were suggested to address the concerns of participants. The results of the conversations are summarized and reported back to the community in a formal document.