Fast food, local focus

Chipotle is at it again. Sales rep Katherine Smith says the chain has committed to purchasing 35 percent of at least one of its produce items for each of its 860 restaurants nationwide from small and mid-sized local farms throughout the growing season. They're working with Parker Farms in Oak Grove to supply Charlottesville and the rest of Virginia, DC, and Maryland Chipotles with green bell peppers. For some time now, Chipotle has been using Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms pork, and braising it for the carnitas, almost exclusively at its Charlottesville store at Barracks Road Shopping Center.

"For a while, as Joel was gearing up his production, we didn’t always have his pork," says Smith. " But, now it is regularly at one-hundred percent."