Ellen Burke Van Slyke, Loews Hotels’ corporate creative director of F&B, knew the company’s latest initiative—the “Adopt-A-Farmer” program—was a hit when she got a call from a local farmer looking to sell his produce.

Word had quickly spread that the Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego was using local ingredients at all of its dining venues. It’s part of Loews’ mandate to support local communities through partnerships with farmers, fishermen and independent purveyors.

“At Loews, gourmet is going green” says CEO Jonathan Tisch. “In sourcing locally grown ingredients, many of which are organic or sustainable, we are not only supporting local farms, but delighting our guests with fresh, flavorful and environmentally friendly dishes.”

Some locations—like the one in Coronado—have 20-25 partners, but all have at least one. Even the Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort partners with a date farmer. The Coronado Bay Resort is ahead of the curve with the all-natural Mistral restaurant, which composts its own produce to fertilize the resort’s gardens, including the chef’s own herb garden.

All Loews restaurants feature menu items with local ingredients and many are named after the farms providing the flavor. “Where you think the local ingredients make a difference with the dish, you want to name it that way,” says Burke Van Slyke. “(The program) is regionally responsible. Aside from reducing our carbon footprint, we’re trying to nurture our own communities.”

So far, she says, guests have been eating up the initiative. At Coronado, Mistral recently had a “Farmers, Foragers and Fishermen” dinner with local supplier Brandt Beef. The chef and Eric Brandt went table-to-table explaining the cut and cooking of each offering. “Instead of having a dinner with the winemaker, we’re having dinner with the farmer,” says Burke Van Slyke, a corporate employee who works out of the San Diego location rather than the corporate offices in New York. “It sold out in a week and I got a letter from a guest saying it was a foodie’s fantasy.”

The Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson partners with the Tohono O’Odham Native American Nation for a ‘Desert’ tasting menu, with ingredients grown using traditional desert flood-farming methods. The Loews Regency in New York offers one of Burke Van Slyke’s favorites: yogurt from Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, the only artesian sheep’s milk producer in the Hudson Valley.