Flavor and Quality: Bringing More to the Plate
American diners are more sophisticated, well traveled and socially conscious than ever. They want big flavor on their plates, and they crave variety: tacos yesterday, pad Thai today, Indian curry tomorrow. Increasingly, they are asking how and where their food is grown and choosing what's local, seasonal and sustainable.
Flavor, variety, sustainability. What can volume foodservice operators do to satisfy these demands? How can large contract feeders access the kind of farm-fresh regional food that's available to independent restaurateurs?
Those were the big questions on the table at the second annual "Flavor, Quality and American Menus" summit at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in California's Napa Valley, in September 2005. The invited guests—leaders among the nation's contract feeders and multi-unit restaurant chains—spent three days with growers, produce marketers and university plant scientists to look at ways to bring more flavor to the table.
The resulting discussion, condensed and analyzed in the following pages, should leave any observer hopeful. Partnerships between chefs and growers aren't just the province of white-tablecloth restaurants; these fruitful alliances are happening in every foodservice niche.
One overarching theme did emerge from the meeting, and it can be summarized in one word: Innovate. Tomorrow's winners will be those with the big, bold ideas today. With consumer food preferences changing so rapidly, if you're not moving forward, you're losing ground.
