As their career paths become clear, students will inevitably emulate what they’ve experienced in our classrooms and kitchens. Thus, our responsibility is great. Which attitudes, aptitudes and beliefs do we want graduates to portray throughout their careers as a result of our actions?

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

As many schools head into the final stretch of an academic year, I thought that it might be an opportune time to reflect on the responsibility we share as a catalyst for positive change in the food industry.

Each student who walks across that commencement stage in 2015 and beyond could be a person who helps to make our industry that much better; a person who may very well define what it means to be a successful restaurateur, chef, research chef, pastry chef, teacher, author or advocate for food integrity in America.

As educators we have an obligation and a wonderful opportunity to set the stage for this to take place. Students will inevitably emulate what they experience in classrooms and kitchens as their career paths become clear. You can, and do, make a difference every day and should never lose sight of the power and responsibility that coexist.

Here’s a valuable education-resources fact sheet to help educators effectively teach seafood sustainability.

Courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation

Education is the key to the future development and management of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. Available below as a .pdf file for download, educators will find descriptions of helpful web sites linking them to an array of educational materials so they can develop an appropriate curriculum for their classes.

Begin by visiting Monterey Bay Aquarium’s SeafoodWatch website at www.seafoodwatch.org. This site provides downloadable pocket guides as well as important information on seafood species, fishery and aquaculture issues and much more.

Top chefs know that exceptional produce is where flavor begins. More produce choices equates to more chances to shine. That’s why citrus is something to celebrate.

Courtesy of The Culinary Institute of America

The citrus world has several notable newcomers—specialty varieties that used to be rare are now poised for takeoff. Growers have expanded plantings of citrus that once seemed exotic, like Meyer lemons, Cara Cara oranges and Moro oranges. And they’re devoting more acreage to the truly unusual, like Zebra™ (pink variegated) lemons and pummelos.

These up-and-coming citrus are clearly fruits with a future, and chefs who embrace them have a competitive edge. A cocktail garnished with a Zebra lemon slice makes a cutting-edge impression; a mundane roast chicken makes a fashion statement with grilled Cara Cara oranges (pictured).

To further their understanding of the needs and expectations of chefs in the foodservice industry and expand their culinary knowledge and skills, the Emmi Roth Foodservice sales team participated in a culinary training program at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C., January 19-23.

“Our team strives to understand our customers’ day-to-day challenges and opportunities both in the kitchen and on the menu,” said Linda Duwve, vice president of sales and marketing at Monroe, Wis.-based Emmi Roth USA. “Hands-on training programs like these allow our team to deliver better products, information and service to the foodservice industry.”

In preparation for the four-day training, each team member completed an accredited food-handling safety training course and earned his or her Food Safety Manager certification through the National Registry of Food Service Professionals. While onsite at the university, the team attended lab courses with students, participated in one-on-one food-safety and culinary-skills sessions with chef-instructors Donald Brizes and Robert Brenner, and executed in-kitchen assignments. The rigorous educational program was customized by JWU specifically for the Emmi Roth Foodservice team.

The Culinary Institute of America is naming the high-volume-production teaching kitchen in its new Student Commons at the Hyde Park, N.Y., campus after Jones Dairy Farm in recognition of the company’s ongoing support of the college.

The Jones Dairy Farm Line and Kitchen will be a centerpiece of the dining area of the Student Commons building and home to CIA classes in high-volume breakfast, lunch and dinner cooking. The facility, currently under construction, is part of a major expansion and renovation of the CIA’s Student Recreation Center, and is scheduled to begin serving CIA students in the summer of 2015. The existing high-volume-production kitchen, in the college’s Roth Hall, was dedicated to Jones Dairy Farm in 2006.

“The CIA is deeply grateful to once again partner with Jones Dairy Farm in our drive to provide the world’s best culinary education,” said CIA President Tim Ryan, CMC. “Our organizations have a 20-year relationship, through which we are advancing our goals of excellence, entrepreneurship and innovation for our students.”

Jones Dairy Farm is a 125-year-old family-owned and operated business and leader in all-natural breakfast sausage for the foodservice and retail industries. The company is based in Fort Atkinson, Wis.

Joe Perdue, CCM, CHE, the club industry’s leading hospitality educator, died in Atlanta on Jan. 19, 2015, after a long illness. He was 64.

Since 1986, Perdue had served as academic advisor for the Alexandria, Va.-based Club Managers Association of America (CMAA). Responsible for the initial development of CMAA’s Business Management Institute (BMI), Perdue coordinated more than 300 weeklong BMI programs for more than 10,000 managers. The Business Management Institute is a flourishing professional-development program that has become the most well-respected education initiative of the hospitality industry. Beyond the United States, Perdue developed professional education programs in China, South Africa, Europe and Canada.  

In addition to serving as academic advisor, Perdue held the positions of director of education and vice president for CMAA, where he was responsible for all professional-development and certification programs. He continued to have responsibility for overseeing CMAA’s BMI program and certification exam, study materials and certification review course.

The new International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education Penn State Research Report, entitled “University Lodging Demand: An Analysis of its Stability and Guidance for Estimating its Growth Potential at the Market Level,” reveals the demand for college and university lodging is more stable than the typical lodging demand, and that markets dominated by a college are more stable in terms of not only occupancy rates, but also average room rates.

“At many recent hotel-investment conferences and in recent issues of hotel-trade magazines, hotel developers have proposed that a hot prospective location for hotel development is near colleges and universities,” said School of Hospitality Management director John O’Neill, who conducted the study. “The primary reason often cited for this optimism is the relative stability of lodging demand generated by colleges. However, until now, this proposition has never been empirically tested, and no empirical research has shown hotel developers what variables about colleges they should study to determine the feasibility of hotel development in any given college marketplace.”

It’s the New Year, and with it comes a new wave of prognostications that seek to give direction to operators and chefs looking for “the next big thing.” What can we look forward to?

Courtesy of Sysco Shape

Industry oracles see the continuation of such mega-trends as healthful dining, local sourcing and the ratcheting up of flavor profiles. In addition, sweet and spicy mashups, the blending of mushrooms with ground meat, increased menu transparency and the rise of Generation Z will help to drive innovation as we progress into the year. Here are 10 trends to watch in 2015.

A Matter of Taste
Middle-of-the-road flavor profiles are out; robust flavors are in. Once noted for their unadventurous palates, Americans now just can’t seem to get enough spicy fare at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Our former “fear of flavor,” which once largely dominated domestic eating habits, is being supplanted by a bold, global attitude that embraces multiple culinary experiences—particularly those ethnic foods that pack a punch. Authentic Mexican and Latin concepts are among the most popular influences, together with other ethnic-inspired cuisines like Southeast Asian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern. And white-hot ingredients like Sriracha can be found in virtually every professional kitchen today.

Premium Blend
A collaborative effort by The Culinary Institute of America, the University of California at Davis and the Mushroom Council found that both health and flavor concerns can be addressed by the blending of chopped mushrooms together with ground meat. Not only does this mashup yield a food product that is tastier, juicier and more nutritious than traditional ground-meat items like hamburgers, meat balls and meatloaf, but it adds volume as well, proponents say. At the same time, blending helps to reduce the amount of sodium, fat and calories in a menu item. Today, an increasing number of commercial and noncommercial operators are embracing the blending process, with many more expected to join the ranks this year. 

The deadline to submit your entry in the 7th-annual CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award program is April 1.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC

The Kendall College School of Culinary Arts and the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ) are accepting applications for the 2015 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award.

Sustainability, once dubbed the “wave of the future” for the foodservice industry, is the reality today.

The CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award, which since its inception has been sponsored by Kendall College, is the first national award to recognize high-school and professional culinary-arts and baking/pastry programs for their commitment to practicing ecological sustainability on campus and/or integrating innovative teaching of sustainability in the curriculum.

Kendall has dedicated itself to sustainability in its classrooms and operations since 2005, and even more gratifying than the value we’ve reaped on our own campus has been the privilege of sharing our knowledge with other educators and learning from them. That is the impetus behind the CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award.

Assigning an interview as an out-of-class activity will help your students practice networking, making connections with industry professionals and interacting in a professional manner.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

My past two “Mayo’s Clinics” have focused on out-of-classroom activities because they are an important part of a student’s education and one that we often do not have a chance to discuss or think about. In this column, we will discuss the challenges and values of using interviews as an out-of-class learning activity.

Reasons for Using Interviews
There are a number of benefits that derive from using interviews. If you give your students an assignment to interview a specific person or persons in certain positions—chef de cuisine, pastry chef, maître d’hôtel or restaurant manager—they will have to do some research on the person and prepare a list of questions to use in the interview.

If you do not make the arrangements ahead of time with persons who are willing to be interviewed or provide students with access to specific individuals, the assignment gives them experience in reaching out and contacting industry professionals, requesting an appointment and making all the appropriate arrangements for an interview. Learning this range of skills contributes dramatically to students’ professional development at an early point in their careers. Hopefully, it also helps them build some confidence in their networking skills.