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.

Gavin Pierce, a student at Baker College of Port Huron’s Culinary Institute of Michigan (CIM), was highlighted in the Fall 2014 edition of Life with Teens, a magazine published quarterly by TeenLife Media for parents.

The article highlighted reasons to consider careers in trade professions and featured teens who have chosen to do just that. Pierce, a rising young chef, is a prime example. He is earning an associate degree in culinary arts at the CIM Port Huron and recently won a silver medal at a regional cooking competition.

“Gavin is an outstanding young chef, and displays a great amount of passion for the profession,” said Thomas Recinella, CEC, ACE, AAC, CIM Port Huron program director and COURSES Restaurant executive chef. “He enjoys engaging all five senses and blending his artistic work into the equation. That type of passion is unique, and I know that an impressive future lies ahead for him.”

For the third straight year, the winner of the culinary competition at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Academic Cultural Technology & Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) will be enrolling at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Frehdee Gatewood of Houston, Texas, was the gold-medal winner at a cook-off held at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas last summer. By winning the event, Gatewood earned a half-tuition scholarship to the CIA. She enrolls at the Hyde Park, N.Y., campus this month, majoring in culinary arts.

Last year’s gold-medal winner, Darrell Crawford of Chicago, is beginning his CIA studies in January 2015, as well. Karina Yepez, who won in 2012, is currently a sophomore.

Juleps Catering at Sullivan University in Louisville, Ky., is pleased to announce the addition of chefs Laurent Vals and Jacquelyn Thompson-Lee to its culinary team.

Vals joined Juleps in October 2014. Previously, he worked in restaurants in Paris and New York City before opening his own hand-crafted chocolate company in Rhode Island. In 2014, he won the Dessert Cup competition and took fifth place for Chocolatier of the Year at the annual Pastry Live convention. Born in Paris, Vals received his culinary degree from l’Ecole Hoteliere du Moulin a Vent in 1986 and his pastry-chef degree in 1989. In his new position at Juleps, Vals oversees the day-to-day kitchen operations; coaches, mentors and guides catering interns; and develops new menu ideas while managing seasonal menus.

Ground beef and hamburgers are two of America’s most beloved meat products, yet also among the most misunderstood when it comes to how they’re made. With that in mind, American Meat Institute (AMI) has developed a new video as part of its “Glass Walls” series featuring a tour of a processing plant that produces ground beef for several major restaurant chains. The tour is led by Birchwood Foods/Kenosha Beef president and CEO Dennis Vignieri, whose family has been in the beef business for nearly 80 years.

The video highlights the entire process of making ground beef and hamburgers and shows how beef trimmings are analyzed and ground into a specific lean-to-fat ratio that consumers enjoy and finally formed into patties that are packaged and sent to restaurants and grocery stores. More than half of the beef consumed in the United States is ground beef.