Several years ago, the North Dakota Farmers Union got into the restaurant business.
It opened “Founding Farmers” in Washington, DC in 2008. Since then, it has opened two other restaurants in DC, one in Tysons, Virginia and one in Potomac, Maryland. It is set to open another one in the nation’s capital this month.
"Right now, we're serving in the four restaurants about 32,000 people a week," said Farmers Union president Mark Watne.
The original purpose for the restaurants was to use food sourced from family farms and ranches, farmer owned co-ops and farmer owned processing plants. Watne said that's still the goal.
"We've got all the foods made by scratch," Watne said. "A lot of it is coming from family farms, some of that from North Dakota."
Watne said the Farmers Union is still looking at other ideas to grow the business.