Loading ...In a previous post I asserted that one goal of the titan foodservice producer-distributor alliances — by this I mean huge distributors like Sysco and USFoodservice, in league with producers like Tyson and Hormel — is to perform as much of the actual flavoring and cooking of the food as possible, before it even gets to the restaurant kitchen. In this model, the restaurant focuses on the “guest experience”, while the food, prepared with the enormous resources of a large distribution corporation, is very consistent in quality and carefully costed to maximize profit. Although, of course, this food is not something I’m particularly interested in eating, for a multitude of reasons.
There are plenty of restaurants that work in this model at least to some degree. And my eating-out experiences suggest to me that the number of these kinds of restaurants is growning.
So I wasn’t surprised to stumble across the following article yesterday, perusing the July issue of Restaurant Business magazine.
“Value-added” is the buzzword in the meat industry, and pork is no exception. Dennis Goettsch, VP of marketing for the foodservice division of Hormel, estimates that pre-seasoned, pre-marinated and pre-cooked pork products are growing at twice the rate of traditional pork cuts. The main reason: they take pressure off the back of the house. Minimum-wage employees can prep these items, it’s easy to maintain portion size and there’s less chance of cross-contamination than with raw meat. [emphasis mine]
It then lists a bunch of popular products in this vein, from Osso Buco to Asian spiced pork tenderloin to ribs and roasts.
To rephrase this press release in a way that makes sense to me: a growing number of the restaurants we eat at are not using their own recipes or even cooking their own food. We, as their guests, are paying restaurant prices solely for the opportunity to be served this pre-cooked, factory-produced food in a dining room that helps us feel some certain way about ourselves. By embracing this system, we are able to get slightly less expensive restaurant meals, and also ensure that potentially challenging, creative kitchen jobs are replaced in our community with monotonous minimum-wage kitchen jobs. What a great deal for everyone, no?
This is where we’re headed: Every restaurant meal, from neighborhood places to fine dining, produced like jalapeno poppers.
What we can do to stop it, or at least slow it down: get to know the restaurants you eat at, what ingredients they’re using, where they buy things from, and best yet, where and what the farms are that grow the foods. (And recall that Niman Ranch and White Marble Farms sound like farms, but they’re actually brands.) Be prepared to pay a little bit more for real food. (It shouldn’t cost a lot more, though, really. Just a little.) Enjoy the taste of real food when you get it, ’cause it might not be as available to us in the future.
On a related note, you might be wondering why I was reading Restaurant Business magazine. It’s actually a pretty interesting insight into the operations of huge numbers of restaurants. Being a business magazine, it tends to consider every restaurant primarily in terms of its profit-making, which is of course alienating to someone who loves food. However, business realities are important to every restaurant, and when there are tested techniques to improve one’s business standing, it doesn’t hurt to learn about them. For instance, apparently the new big thing is to save laundering costs by not using tablecloths and just having bare wood tables. So our operations team is looking into that possibility for us.
(That last bit’s a joke, in case you haven’t been here before.)
Hi Jay – For me,a real key statement is ” Niman Ranch and White Marble Farms sound like farms, but they’re actually brands”. People are now starting to speak of such items in “hushed tones” as if there is something scared about it. I hope to hear about “branding” very soon, as in what CNET has done with Chowhound……..to create an exclusive brand and voice!