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Our Partners
By partnering with local farmers, producers, and businesses, the Blue Plate Diner utilizes the freshest ingredients available. These partners consist of organic farmers, sustainably minded producers, and innovative engineers. They all have the same goal: to provide organic, locally-grown and harvested food to Minnesota and beyond.
Since the 1920s, owners of Whole Grain Milling, Co. in Welcome, Minnesota have been farming organically and harvesting and producing chemical-free products. Relying on crop rotation and soil-tilling, second-generation farmers Doug and Lin Hilgendorf believe in the importance of providing clean, chemical-free foods like homemade tortilla chips, old-fashioned rolled oats, and buckwheat flour.
In the early 1990s, Larry started raising chicks the same way he’d been farming — organically. Word spread across the state about his all-natural, free-range, no antibiotics-administered chickens who were producing organic eggs. Today, the few thousand free-range hens are fed organic flax seeds, small grains, pasture grasses, and bugs. They can wander throughout the grassy fields without any constraining fences or wires. They’re truly free-range.
Owatonna-based Revol Greens produces arugula, sweet butter, spinach, red oak leaf and other greens in their 2.5-acre greenhouse. Grown naturally without pesticides, Revol uses a hydroponic system that features soil boards floating atop ponds of nutrient-rich water. The more than 2,000 pounds of greens produced each day are then harvested and chilled within 10 minutes for next-day delivery.
Beekeepers John and Chris know that every flowering species produces a honey with a unique flavor and scent. That’s why the owners of The Bee Shed in Rochester extract honey four times each season, yielding flavors with unique scents and colors. Multiple harvests result in four different variations: Spring, Mid-Summer, Wildflower and Autumn.
Flavor is baked — and then sealed — into baguettes, rolls, and loaves at Franklin Street Bakery. Fully baked then frozen, artisan breads and rolls are used for grilled cheese sandwiches and BLTs at Blue Plate Diner. Franklin Street Bakery, a Minneapolis staple, has been delivering wholesale baked goods for more than 25 years.