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Not to cheapen the work that Wodni's accomplished, but I imagine a very large part of the reason why this has worked is because a talented, passionate chef has

by kondro 8y ago

Not to cheapen the work that Wodni's accomplished, but I imagine a very large part of the reason why this has worked is because a talented, passionate chef has decided to work in a hospital, rather than achieve notoriety and fortune running a high-end restaurant. The average person choosing to work in institutional kitchen is not one that is looking to make a difference… they're looking to make ends meet. This is scalable only if they managed to encourage more talented individuals to choose institutional kitchens over commercial ones.

deleted 8y ago
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solatic 8y ago
> This is scalable only if they managed to encourage more talented individuals to choose institutional kitchens over commercial ones. I'm not convinced that this is as difficult as you make out. Commercial kitchens don't usually pay very high salaries, but there is a social status achieved by working for a top-end restaurant. Large-kitchen institutions may not be able to compete on either, but their longevity (compared to restaurants which come and go) allows them to invest in people, taking interested low-skill candidates and bringing them up through a kitchen's roles in a predictable way, including possibly financing culinary degrees for people working their way up. It's not like Wodni is doing something particularly different (? for lack of a better word) here. Instead of buying from low-quality suppliers whose prices were higher for ensuring consistency at wholesale scale, he bought from a multitude of high-quality suppliers at wholesale market rate. He then, using experience and education, adapted to the differences in inventory that come with working with small-scale suppliers, while ensuring that his budget was efficiently utilized by not wasting anything (e.g. saving fish bones for stock instead of buying fish stock from a supplier). Yes, that requires education and experience to do and do well, but I don't see why more institutions couldn't invest in more people to get that education and experience.

by kondro 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

solatic 8y ago

> This is scalable only if they managed to encourage more talented individuals to choose institutional kitchens over commercial ones. I'm not convinced that this is as difficult as you make out. Commercial kitchens don't usually pay very high salaries, but there is a social status achieved by working for a top-end restaurant. Large-kitchen institutions may not be able to compete on either, but their longevity (compared to restaurants which come and go) allows them to invest in people, taking interested low-skill candidates and bringing them up through a kitchen's roles in a predictable way, including possibly financing culinary degrees for people working their way up. It's not like Wodni is doing something particularly different (? for lack of a better word) here. Instead of buying from low-quality suppliers whose prices were higher for ensuring consistency at wholesale scale, he bought from a multitude of high-quality suppliers at wholesale market rate. He then, using experience and education, adapted to the differences in inventory that come with working with small-scale suppliers, while ensuring that his budget was efficiently utilized by not wasting anything (e.g. saving fish bones for stock instead of buying fish stock from a supplier). Yes, that requires education and experience to do and do well, but I don't see why more institutions couldn't invest in more people to get that education and experience.