CONSULTANT ROUNDTABLE


“Everybody is struggling with labor shortages and supply chain issues… We are having to be adaptable”


Steve Carlson FCSI, president, Rippe Associates


adoption rate in the US. Part of it is due to training and putting chefs and culinarians in front of the equipment to try it – just cook an egg. If we could get half of the chefs in America to try it, the adoption rate would be huge. Currently, I am working on one of the largest all-electric kitchens in North America, a large food hall. The pandemic has hurt some of the testing we had planned while we were building, but it is slowly starting to come back. We’re working on an induction French top that gives a chef the feel of French top, but with the power and intricacies that induction can bring. The pandemic has slowed down our ability to get to market with these things. We also invested heavily in VR before the pandemic and I’m so glad we did. We’ve utilized our VR software in every single project. We don't do renderings anymore.


Is this the time to be radical or consistent? KS: It's always my preference to take the more radical approach of ‘right between the eyes’. But I also tend to look at things from the outside in, rather than always from the inside out – thinking about how things are changing. Sometimes it's about partnering with one client and one segment and talking to them


about their needs, and then thinking how we can take some of those ideas and implement those into other projects. There are some terrifi c synergies coming about. Recently, someone asked me what the


single most labor-saving piece of kitchen equipment was, so I had to think about it. The answer to that question is the c ation system – not an oven, fryer, or smart technology. An ASHRAE study from a few years ago showed that for every 10° an employee is out of their comfort zone, productivity drops by 30%. If your labor costs are between $30-40,000 a year for a lower-level person, think about the cost per person whose productivity drops by 30%.


Isn't this the kind of conversation we need to have more often? LL: What an exciting time this is for foodservice. Although I realize this has been a slow period, at the same time, I've not seen foodservice change so much, or known hospitality and design to be as challenging as they are now. I have never seen or had so many conversations to try to understand what is happening and what is changing. It's really remarkable, in some senses, just how diff erent and exciting a period of time this is. It's very alive. KS: It's kind of a metamorphosis. We don't know where it's going to end up, but it is a thing in motion. Collectively, as foodservice consultants, we're on the front line to help direct which way it's all going to go.


“It's really remarkable, in some senses, just how different and exciting a period of time this is ”


Laura Lentz FCSI, design principal, Culinary Advisors


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THE AMERICAS


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