CMP SERIES CERTIFICATION MADE POSSIBLE

‘IT’S PART OF OUR JOB’ The rise in special requests undoubtedly adds to the complexity of meal planning. Kristy Glass, meetings manager for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), reports that, for a recent meeting for 50 people, she received requests related to nine different allergies or dietary restrictions. “In the past,” Glass said, “you could generally accommodate requests by offering a vegetarian option — something almost all food- service facilities are used to providing. Today that doesn’t always work.” The traditional policy was to prepare an overage

of vegetarian meals in the amount of 5 percent of guaranteed meal counts, unless otherwise stated by the client, said Doug Finney, general manager of convention and catering services at the Pasadena Convention Center. But vegetarian-meal requests alone are up to 10 percent for some groups, he said, and many requests are significantly more complicated. As you would expect, all of the meals were customized for the 250 people who attended the two-and-a-half-day Celiac Disease Founda- tion (CDF) National Education Conference at the Pasadena center in May. But the kitchen also was asked to prepare more than 80 special meals when 400 attendees of a health-care association held a luncheon there in April, Finney said. Many chefs and culinary professionals, includ-

ing Finney, told Convene that they take pride in meeting such dietary requests and find the chal- lenge professionally stimulating. Providing service

“to groups with dietary issues, particularly those people at risk, is a very delicate and serious a mat- ter, and we do take it to heart,” Finney said. “For the other dietary requests, it challenges us to stay ahead and allows for us to continue to be creative. We accommodate the best we can. After all, we are in the hospitality business.” And people with creative minds often like to

work within constraints. “I fall into that group,” Rasmussen said. “I don’t mind when there are restrictions, I like rising to the challenge.” Walt Disney World’s Gilbert concurred. Guests with special diets are “not a hindrance to us; they actu- ally make us better at what we do,” he said. “Our special events and catering operations team cre- ates hundreds of custom menus throughout the year, and we love the challenge of creating some- thing special and building it right into the menu package. This way guests with special diets don’t

54 PCMA CONVENE JULY 2013

Doug Finney ‘Dietary issues are a very delicate and serious matter, and we do take it to heart.’

André Beauchamp About last-minute requests for special meals: ‘I have to be honest. It is not an easy matter.’

feel out of place, but rather feel like we took the time to include them in the whole program.” “It’s part of our job,” HRS’s Beauchamp said,

gamely adding: “It’s no problem at all.” Beau- champ recently introduced an appetizer at the Quebec City center that eliminates virtually all of the major allergens, with the exception of traces of sulfite. The appetizer, made of tapioca on red pep- per coulis — a thick sauce — with fava beans and leeks, is “no drab salad,” Beauchamp said. Professional kitchen staffs also have risen to

the operational challenges, standardizing the procedures around serving guests with special requests, said Centerplate’s Prell, who prefers the term “customization” to “special meal.” By pre- paring food themselves and being able to procure ingredients efficiently, Prell said, Centerplate kitchen managers are able to minimize costs asso- ciated with the demand for alternative ingredients.

KEEPING TRACK OF WHAT’S WHAT Meeting planners, for their part, also have devised ways to keep track of burgeoning dietary requests — and keep costs down. “We ask during the registration process if anyone needs special accommodation and communicate it to the hotel well in advance,” Dylah Hughes Wallenius, CMP, meetings director for the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), wrote in an online Meetings Community discussion. Wal- lenius maintains a spreadsheet of attendees for each meeting that lists their known special dietary needs and which events they’ll be attend- ing. “I then work closely with the chef to come up with one or two alternate selections that will suit all of the special needs group, whenever possible, rather than providing 10 or more entirely differ- ent meals.” Some planners are relying more on buffets,

where food is clearly labeled. “But, even then,” Glass said, “it is difficult to have every ingredient in each dish listed.” During pre-cons, Wallenius emphasizes to food-services staff that anyone waiting on her attendees needs to know the ingre- dients — or at least the usual allergens — in the food they are serving. “Another concern,” Wallenius said, “is food

that is sometimes outsourced and no one on staff knows exactly what’s in it. I’m finding more and more hotels that buy their baked goods.” At a recent ACTEC meeting, the hotel served what

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