Chef Services Group operated one of the most innovative trade booth layout concepts putting great emphasis on a Nestle Home, where trade show attendees experienced “first hand” how a modern family uses Nestle prepared food item brands to enhance Nutrition, Health, and Wellness.

CSG worked with Nestle Health & Wellness champions to plan and orchestrate the trade booth layout and service of the food for each brand. All booth planning was coordinated by CSG to schedule the “Table Talk” tasting’s and brand food preparations.

Our primary focus during the trade show was to manage all aspect of food services and brand messaging. Preparing some 5,000 samples of various brand products that included such brands as Stouffers, Lean Cuisine, Hot Pockets, DiGiorno Pizza, Libby’s Pumpkin, Jenny Craig, Nestle Professional as well ready to service products from Carnation Breakfast Essentials, Boost, Gerber and Buitoni to name a few. CSG continues to work with Nestle on various projects that support there brand messaging.

Providing an in depth review of the various options the dry egg products offer such as dry egg yolk solids versus ezymne modified egg yolk solids and the advantages or disadvantages these egg product deliver fuctionional outcome when creating different food product applications.

Great detail was spent on the functionality of eggs and how formulators can best choose the right egg product for there development work.

Food Product Design November 2010

CSG is now the EggSolutions Chef providing a range of support services to help manufacturers and retailers with day to day formula challenges. This year, CSG was engaged to create recipes using dry and liquid egg products to illustrate the functionality of foaming/aeration, coagulation/gelation, emulsification, crystallization, protein contribution and texture. One of the recipes that resulted from that work, Napoleon Sponge Cake, was published in the March edition of Culinology Magazine.

Earlier in October, CSG provided two Egg Functionality lab sessions at the Chicago R&D Seminar, a practical 2 day “how to” applications-oriented event dedicated to further educating the food & beverage industry’s formulators on specific application challenges. The ‘Eggs Can Do That To!’ Application lab was provided by Chef Walter Zuromski. Two weeks later, CSG took their presentation to Auburn University for the National Egg Products School. CSG delivered a 3 hour workshop / seminar with culinary demonstrations to students attending the 5 day seminar. The presentations drew packed audiences of 50 plus students.

CSG also provided food styling and photography services for the new American Egg Board advertising campaign.

Employee Training
By having a documented training plan for each position, for example, managers and employees are able to be trained thoroughly and quickly.  By simply “throwing employees into the fire” without a standardized training program, there is much room left for error. Critical factors may be left out, staff may be misinformed, or they may be given too much responsibility too soon, which will cause disgruntled customers and discouraged employees. With proper documentation and a regiment to follow, trainees will not miss essential information, and by going through a step-by-step training process, it’s assured they’ll know the material before they carry sole responsibility on their shoulders. Employees become more competent and confident with adequate training, and they understand their expectations, which increases staff moral and has an added benefit of less employee turnover.

Recipes and Processes
Standardizing processes and recipes also assures guest satisfaction through consistent food and service. Return guests are generated when customers have a positive and consistent experience in the restaurant, including food and service, over and over again.  Servers are expected to give the same sequence of service every single visit, and when the guest orders their favorite dish, say Chicken Marsala, they expect it to be the same every time.  However, if the Chicken Marsala recipe is not documented, memorized and available for the cooks, how can the kitchen expect to make the same dish the customer had their previous visit?  As simple and detrimental as documenting recipes is, it’s amazing how many restaurants one will find that don’t do such.  As a result food is inconsistent, as well as the customer base.

Operations
Day-to-day operations can become very time-consuming if not done systematically and with proper forms of documentation.  By documenting procedures and policies, managers spend less time on the day-to-day and more time devoted to building the business, while ensuring quality standards and service are in place.  For instance, the Waste Sheet may indicate that one gallon of mashed potatoes are being thrown away on a daily basis, which would then be a red flag to reduce the batch size made.  By doing this, food cost will be lowered and production resources saved. In another example, Weekly Cleaning Schedules ensure all equipment and areas are being properly cared for, reducing maintenance and equipment costs and increasing safety and sanitation measures.  By means of forms such as Line Check Forms, Production Charts and Close-to-Open Checklists, one can make certain the restaurant is set up for success by ensuring all policies and procedures are in place and up to standards, identify those areas that need attention, and provide accountability for all actions.

Standardization is one of the most essential, yet overlooked keys to running a successful restaurant operation.  By putting policies, procedures, operations manuals, recipe manuals and training modules in place, rest assured you will encounter more positive customer and staff feedback, less employee turnover, and an all-around more successful venue.

Walter nd CSG welcome the opportunity to contribute to this educational event and spread the knowledge of the RCA and Culinology!

Download the December 2007 article