PROJECT VALLARTA HQ / CALIFORNIA


Flexibility is at the heart of the long-term vision for new test kitchen facilities at Vallarta Supermarkets HQ, as FCSI Associate Jeremy Carver tells Christian Doherty


W


hen US supermarket chain Vallarta commissioned a new corporate HQ, the company’s leaders insisted on the inclusion


of an on-site test kitchen to bring food right to the heart of the operation. So it was that FCSI Associate Jeremy Carver, principal at Ricca Design Studios, received a call to get to work on the test kitchen – a 965-square- foot area for developing in-house products and recipes.


He was first introduced to the project in 2022 and in 2023 Carver headed up a two-month design process. Having arrived at sign off, construction took place in mid- 2024 and completion was reached two months later. Vallarta, with 55 stores dotted across California, now has an HQ with multi-use elements fit for the next few decades. Te changing nature of the supermarket sector demanded Ricca focus on delivering a facility with built-in flexibility for the long term. “We knew we’d would be looking at new equipment pieces or new menu items, so we developed a space where we had the hotline with a UDS system,” Carver explains. “So, we’re able to swap in pieces and


have an environment suitable for testing. When a supplier wants to come in to one of the stores, they can just bring the product right into the test kitchen and see if it aligns,” he adds. “Tis allowed us to design at the same time and have that overview while getting good feedback from the client.” Central to the vision was the desire to build flexibility into the design. “Any time I design something, I try not to make a one- trick pony,” Carver says, using the example of the combi oven, a multi-faceted tool. “When we looked at this space, we


JEREMY CARVER FCSI ASSOCIATE Principal


Ricca Design Studios 34


asked ourselves, ‘Are we only going to test, or can we take the opportunity to offer some meal opportunities to help support the staff on site?’ So, we helped open the eyes of the client in that regard. And we had to keep asking ourselves, ‘Can we do a bit more with this space?’”


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