This Ham & Cheese Sandwich Took One Year And $45,000 To Make

How much effort does it take to make a ham and cheese sandwich from scratch? Do you slice your own ham, and bake bread from store-bought flour? That's for amateurs.  Artists/amateur farmers from the Sandwich Factory in Amsterdam made their own ham and cheese sandwich really from scratch: starting with the cows, pigs, and a crop of wheat. All told, it took almost $45,000 and one year to make a batch of 350 sandwiches for some very hungry locavore enthusiasts for about €20 each (approximately $25).

So how did they do it? Project founder Sascha Landshoff and his team sowed wheat and rented a barn where they kept and raised two pigs and two cows while preparing for the wheat to grow. Talk about hyperlocal. Throughout the process, the team invited students and other guests to visit and understand how to cultivate a small farm.

"The ingredients are super simple, but in the end it turned out that even just creating those three is a job that took 20 volunteers and entire summer in a makeshift farm," a member of the project team told co.EXIST, but said that they won't be doing this sort of project again in a hurry because it was so costly. "That's what our new project will be about — how do you find the balance between local food and good food but also produce it in an efficient way."

For the latest happenings in the food and drink world, visit our Food News page.

Joanna Fantozzi is an Associate Editor with The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @JoannaFantozzi