This is a rant leaning more towards a vent. I wanted to know if I should just stop bing sensitive and say, “it is what is” and let it go or say something to the person.

Have any other chefs had this experience:

This year I started a Farm to Table concept in my town, small city population of maybe 200,000. First 95% + locally sourced food service in town, and up until July of this year very few restaurants were sourcing from local farmers. I did my research and worked hard to establish a network and also give credit to the farmers and vendors on my social media pages. I even would work part time as a farm hand on one of the farms that I sourced from as a barter deal. I’m proud of the products coming out of my region and think that food service should source locally as much as possible instead of giving money to Sysco, or US foods. I hosted 100% farmer sourced 6 course wine dinners at the end of every month, did meet and greets for the farmers so they could be introduced and get to know people in a non transactional way.

Around July one of the established restaurant owners added me on socials. It’s one of three considered fine dining and has been open for 12+ years. I didn’t think much of it. (His shop is 5 blocks down the road from me. So it’s not like it’s a big city and happened to be a coincidence) Then a couple weeks later they were featuring all of the exact same farmers that I was using. Went through their social page(s) and this is new to this year. Occasionally they’d have a farmer feature but not building menus around local products. They were taking farm tours and posting as if they’re a farm to table restaurant, I asked the farmer I worked for if they purchased often and he said he didn’t hear from them much before this summer and hadn’t heard after the tour. Now they’re doing a 5 course farm to table dinner at the end of this month, for the same price and again using the exact same vendors including an obscure fishery that took some time to track down. I live in an agriculture dominated area so there are plenty of options, so to use the exact same list seems lazy

I’ve been a chef for 10+ years and I understand and even expect ideas to be lifted and I appreciate the free exchange of ideas and concepts. I think that’s the best way to innovate and create something new and better than before. This is a cut throat industry.
However pulling straight off someone’s concept without a shout out, a private message or head nod seems unprofessional, lame and just damn lazy. Part of my concept is to bring these farmers to the forefront and start a conversation about sustainable food systems, but I feel that the other chefs should do their own homework instead of ripping off someone’s paper.

Being a new, smaller restaurant having my concept and sources and even featured ingredients get jacked then outpaced by a larger more established business is so god damn frustrating.
Work hard all year to try to build something to just have, for lack of a better term, a colleague pass my research off as his own.