Podcast

Transcript

Joshua Miller (00:00)

Everyone, welcome back to another episode of the 5 in 20 podcast by Remarkable Academic Foods. I'm your host, Joshua Miller. And today's topic, we're talking about school food service equipment. Very, very important topic for everyone. And our guest today is Chef Chef Robert Simmelink. He is a former Senior Corporate Executive Chef for a major equipment manufacturer. And today he is the Director of Culinary Services for Ignite Food Service.

They are not your typical rep group. They are hands on offering advisory services for both front of the house and back of the house, helping you get more efficient and run your operations in a less hectic way, if you may. And their locations are all throughout the mountain time zone. So if you're in that part of the U .S. and also the Northwest in those states and even Alaska and Hawaii. So if you're in any of those locations, I mean, that's a huge area for them. And they have three test kitchens amongst their organization. So definitely check these guys out and what they're doing. It's pretty amazing. And stick around for this convo as we dive into the world of equipment for school food Service.

All right, Chef Robert, thank you for tuning in with our audience here today. And absolutely, absolutely, we're going to try to cover another five or so questions in 20 -something minutes. And before we go into any of the nitty -gritty details, I want to ask one icebreaker question, which is, what is your guilty pleasure food?

Chef Robert (01:29)
Hey Josh, good to be here.

Guilty pleasure of food. Oh, salty, sweet and sour. So anytime I can get that combination, I'm all in. So a lot of Southeast Asian.

Joshua Miller (01:47)
Yeah. I was just going to say that I was just going to say that pad thai, assuming is one of those things that falls within that category for you.

Chef Robert (02:02)
Oh yeah. Yeah. So deviate real quickly. We've got a really great Thai restaurant here in Phoenix, and it's called Glai Baan. She's actually up for a James Beard this year. And she did these oyster mushrooms that were tempura battered and had this dehydrated squid paste sweet and sour dipping sauce. One of the best things I've ever had in my life because it crunched in your mouth, but the mushroom was tender. And then that sweet, sour, salty with that mushroom just kind of mind blowing. But just, yeah, I still can taste that. I had that like a year ago and I can still taste it.

Joshua Miller (02:35)
Wow.

Love it, love it. I've been trying to get to mushrooms more and more.

If you find it again, if you get to it again, send my way, send some of my way up here in upstate New York. Awesome. So let's kick into equipment. But first, Ignite Food Service. So like I said in the introduction, you guys have three test kitchens. And that's, I think, is a huge resource for anyone that is involved in school food service in any way, shape, or form. Not if they're just making the decisions, but if they have any influence in the decisions of the equipment coming in. So, but not everyone may understand the full benefit of a test kitchen. So let's just start with the basics. What is a test kitchen?

Chef Robert (03:23)
Okay. Well, I mean, it's kind of like your test drive of your car. You don't, you got to get in that car and you got to drive and you got to know that it's right for you and it does what you want it to do. So when you're buying a piece of equipment, it could be a steamer, it could be a combi oven, it could be, it could be a refrigerator. There's so many different variables to all these different pieces of equipment. 

And in the industry, there's a lot of good, better and best equipment. And you got to kind of figure out which is the one that you want. Do you want something that's going to last forever? Do you want something that's just going to get you through something? How busy is your kitchen? What is it that you're trying to accomplish? And usually there's some sort of challenge you're trying to solve. And so, okay, I've got steamers and convection ovens in my kitchen. Do I want to replace it with another steamer and convection? Maybe. Or do I maybe want to put a combi in?

Chef Robert (04:21)
I don't know. So that's where you come into the kitchen and you work with one of our culinary team and we cook in all these different pieces of equipment and you see how they operate. So, you know, what is it we're trying to get past? And every kitchen's a little bit different. You know, some kitchens like technology, some don't, you know, and maybe the steamer and the convection oven is perfect for your menu.

Or for the people who are using that piece of equipment because it's not intimidating. But maybe you're looking to implement a little bit more scratch cooking to increase the participation rate. Now we want to go up to a combi because it can do more. It's a better air fryer. It can do things that those other pieces of equipment don't do. So let's get in the kitchen, let's cook together, let's evaluate this. And then you can walk out of the kitchen. It's a no pressure thing. And decide for you which piece of equipment really is going to be best for your kitchen or kitchens.

Joshua Miller (05:25)
Absolutely. And I remember the first time, first experience, I went to a test kitchen to look into a piece of equipment. And not only did I bring myself another culinarian or two, but I actually brought in facilities as well, because this was, it was going to be an upgrade. It was new technology, more bells and whistles in it. And so they were able to come in and get some answers question as well to make sure that they were comfortable moving forward with that investment that is going to have a long-term effect for everyone, including them.

Chef Robert (05:39)
Yep. Right.

Yeah, that's a great point because the people who are going to be maintaining that equipment, they're part of the process. They have to buy in too and make sure that they feel comfortable with what's happening also.

Joshua Miller (06:03)
Yeah, absolutely. Do you see organizations, do you see schools taking advantage of test kitchens more and more over the years? Or do you think it's, is it at a level where you think it should be at, or do you think more people should be getting involved with them?

Chef Robert (06:21)
I think that, well, it depends, everywhere's different, and it depends upon the relationship that that district has with both the rep firm and the culinary team. But I think it can be taken a lot further. My team here in Phoenix, we've got a really good rep, well, and Denver too. Kent is new for us, or Seattle. We've only been in that marketplace for a couple of years, so some relationships are seeing.

still being built, but they know who Ignite is in the mountain in Southwest. They know who I am because I'm very involved in what we call SNAS, S -N -A -A -Z, here. And I do a lot of their leadership meetings. I actually do presentations for them. I do kickoff meetings for some of the different districts around town. They host meetings in my kitchen.

And some of the other districts, they come here for team building events. So they know me. So they know that if they want a piece of equipment, they're going to contact me. But I know that it's not that way in every marketplace. And I would recommend to every director, every district, that if you're thinking about a piece of equipment, reach out and go into the kitchen and see. And you know what? Maybe you want to replace brand X steamer with the same brand. But I bet that there's something that's changed on that steamer now. There's been improvements. There's been different things that have happened. So go get in front of it and see what the newest version of it is.

Joshua Miller (07:56)
Yeah, and go out and do your research. If you don't know someone that is in your area, a rep group or equipment dealer that may have a test kitchen, go do your research. That's how I ended up coming across one. I did my research, got in touch with an equipment rep group, and they said, oh, by the way, we have a test kitchen at XYZ. Let's go there. Let's meet up and let's cook some products. You get to see how it works. So do your research. If you don't know of anyone, they are out there, and it is a great resource to have. So.

Chef Robert (08:25)
Yeah, a quick Google search, a quick Google search searching in manufacturers rep, the brand of equipment and where you're located. It'll pop right up with their website and you'll be able to see all their contact information.

Joshua Miller (08:25)
Yeah, really easy to find. So earlier you touched on good, better, best equipment. And sometimes there's a lot of focus on the cost. When there's, you know, schools looking to buy some equipment, they just want to look at that bottom line. But as you said, it depends on your operation, what kind of volume you're doing, what kind of menu you have. So there are some hidden costs of just always going for that cheap, cheap, cheap.

So what are some of those hidden costs that operators may not be privy to of, you know, this could be a headache down the road?

Chef Robert (09:13)
Yeah, well, I like to think about automation in kitchens, not as if you go to the trade shows, you see these hamburger flipping Chef Robertots and these things that pick french fries, french fry baskets up and or the Chipotle thing now where it puts the guacamole in a bowl for you and they peel the avocados. I look at automation as simple as it could be a pChef Roberte, because now the pChef Roberte tells me when the food's done instead of me having to walk over to that piece of equipment, open a door pull my pocket thermometer out, stick it in, stand there, wait for it, and see if it's ready or not, and close the door and go back and cooking. Well, I left my station now. Or if I'm in service and I'm feeding the kids, I've had to walk away from the line. So I look at that. I look at a program that I walk up and I hit the tater tot button, and the oven knows exactly what to do and does it the same way every single time. 

So that's kind of where the better and the best come up. So in your, and you're good, you're turning a knob. You got, you may or may not have temperature control and you're turning a knob for time. Is it the right amount of time? I don't know, you know, and are you relying on that new employee to know that, oh, I have to set my steamer for nine minutes for this certain item. Well, does that new employee know that? Am I having to teach that to that new employee? Or can I just go, hey, walk over to the convection oven or the combi oven and push that tater tot button and the oven does everything that I need it to do. And that's all the training I need to do. I don't need a chef. I need a cook, not even a higher level cook. And on day one, I'm setting that person up for success and I'm not making their life difficult. They...

They're cooking the best food right out of the gate. They feel good about the food, and it's not hard for them.

Joshua Miller (11:20)
Yeah. So thinking about the quality of cooks that you have coming in, cooks and chefs, and obviously that usually plays into your pay rate as well. You know, how much are you paying? And we all know that this labor crisis is not going to go anywhere. And the skill level of people that are coming into the marketplace is not going to magically get higher overnight. So yeah, those are definitely some things to keep considering when you're looking at equipment.

Chef Robert (11:30)
And I'm still hearing some of the more remote districts, they just can't, they don't have enough people. You know, they want six cooks in the kitchen. They can find four. That's all they can find. So now everybody's doing double the work. And that's not easy. And the lunch ladies always like to complain about their backs and their feet hurting. Well, now they're hurting even more. So, you know, whatever that, if that piece of equipment can help take some of that pressure off, that's great. The other thing too is,

You get what you pay for. And so is that piece of equipment going to last for five years, or is it going to last for 10 years? And when it does fail, is it failing at 10 o 'clock in the morning when you're trying to get food to the line, and now all of a sudden you can't steam something or you can't cook or bake something. 

Was that savings really worth it? Or do you want to put find that extra money and buy something that's going to last longer? And then that also goes back to you mentioned the facilities team. You know, when you get into a steam piece of equipment, whether it's a steamer or a combi, you know, that facilities team needs to be changing the filters on a regular basis. The kitchen needs to be doing a deliming step of that piece of equipment. So there is a little bit of ongoing maintenance and you need to you need to do that too because that small amount that you're paying for that upkeep is gonna save you thousands of dollars down the road.

Joshua Miller (13:29)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I had a scenario where I was helping a school decide on purchasing new, I think it was like a six or eight top burners stove. And I gave them a spec, manufactured everything, and they came back and said, well, why can't we get this one? And they were presented with one that was like half the cost, but the power of it was like, 50%. I was like, your cooks and your chefs are going to quit on you. They're going to be watching water boil come to a boil for hours back there. It's great for a hundred seat restaurant maybe, but not for this size of a campus pumping out as much now as as fast as you are. So that's definitely another aspect to it. Yeah.

Chef Robert (14:11)
Yeah, definitely. Or like a flat top. You know, again, they range in prices. But you know what, how many burgers are you going to put on that flat top or other items? And is it going to get cold? Is it going to start to steam that product instead of searing that product? And are you going to be able to drop another burger right where you pulled one off and continue to cook? Or do you have to give that thing five minutes to reheat? Well, you know, that's frustrating. That's again that's not worth the small amount of money that you saved.

Joshua Miller (14:45)
Yeah, absolutely. So in your career, I'm sure you've come across numerous schools, K -12 colleges, universities. Do you have one in particular where you could share a success story where you saw the program and a before equipment was invested into and after they invested in good quality equipment?

Chef Robert (15:01)
Well, I pChef Robertably got thousands of those, but let's just go back to the last three weeks of my life. I was hired under our Culinary 360 program, which is a consulting program that where we go in and we work with either new kitchens or existing kitchens to help them really implement the equipment that they put in because some manufacturers, rep groups, they don't have a culinary team like we do. And they will go in and a sales guy goes in and says, well, this is how you turn the turn this piece of equipment on. This is how you adjust the heat. This is etc. And they're there for an hour or two hours and they're gone. So I was brought in to implement a cook chill kitchen in a CPK. So a central production kitchen for a school district in Iowa. They have 11 schools outside of the commissary. And so they have all this wonderful new equipment, but no one in the district had ever done cook chill before. And they all went in, they cooked at each individual school in the morning for that service and went home. Well, now we're gonna go in and we're going to spread the workload.

And that one kitchen is cooking for all 11 satellites now. And you could imagine if we tried to cook all that food in the morning for 11 schools, they'd be there at 3 a .m. So we're using cook -chill processes to start that production out. Our target is four days, but sometimes it falls within three to two to five.

And five is the max that we ever want to go out a day of production three days in in in a cooler and a day of re-thermalization whether that's at the school or at the commissary and so we started to figure out how to do this with a limited staff and be able to start to spread that out work with the dietitian on site to write the menus so that no department got overwhelmed and they were able to spread that workload out between the bakery, cold production, and hot production. So all three teams worked together, implemented different menu items, brought things together at different times. A good example would be a new menu item that they're putting in, and this was done through a tasting. But cold production over a two-day process did different things of slicing potatoes using a food processor type machine, slicing different onions, slicing different peppers. And they all ended up in hot production at a different time. And they roasted those separately. And then they blast chilled them. And finally, everything came together and was combined, rethermed, put in hot transport boxes, and sent to the schools. So now it's a new menu item. But it didn't really slow the kitchen down at all because it was done over a couple of days through two different departments. And so implementing that in, we were able to start adding more scratch cooking to that school district. We were able to give the kids fresher, more unique menu items. The biggest takeaway was implementing fresh pico de gallo that they would make either the morning, make the morning of. That was the first thing that they'd walk in and they would just take.

They'd go in, they'd peel the onions. They'd go in and deseed the chilies. They would cut the tops off of the tomatoes. And they would mostly destem the cilantro. Everything went through that food processor on a dicing blade, combined, add a little seasoning, add some lime juice. And it went into third pans. It was wrapped up. It was put into cold transport and sent to the schools in the morning for their tacos.

And now, instead of canned salsa, they had fresh pico de gallo. How cool is that? And that was easier than opening up all those cans of salsa.

Joshua Miller (19:27)
You can't replace it. Those are not identical.

I believe it, especially when the can opener is not working right. Going around this circle of H -E -L -L, like it just doesn't end. All right, so that's a great example and really big project that they took on going from cooking and holding to cook, chill, and re -therm me. So not every organization may be ready for a big undertaking like that. 

So let's say that there's a school that is just like we don't have any major projects to you know turn over exactly what our foodservice are. So it's like today however you still should be considering how much you're investing in your equipment year in and year out and that's where equipment replacement plans can come into play. So why is an equipment replacement plan an important tool to have?

Chef Robert (20:25)
Well, it's good not only for the budgeting, but also watching for grants. You know, are there some grants that are available through either a national program or a state program that is going to let you replace equipment for something that's more efficient? And as we talk about efficiency, that's another thing to look at because there's a lot of utility companies that have rebates for pieces of equipment.

Chef Robert (20:55)
So I know that if you buy a Energy Star gas steamer here in Arizona, Southwest Gas gives you 500 bucks back. So I mean, that's awesome. So back to your six burner range, if you're heating water up in a six burner range and you're thinking about going to a steamer and you're going to get 500 bucks back, wow, I think I might go that steamer route instead of looking at replacing that that range and I might, you know, when I have to replace that range, go with a two or a four burner range and then grab a steamer too.

We see successes, too, just that they're moving in another direction with that and they get a grant, or maybe like here in Arizona. This is another unique thing that we have. It's called the Blue Watermelon Project, and it's started by a group of chefs who wanted to help the schools implement and work with farmers to get fresh produce in so that they could have fresher items on the menu instead of frozen or commodity items.

And so they're helping with fundraisers and working with helping to secure grants so that the schools can actually start bringing in that fresh food for the kids and working with something that's more nutritional, keeping it local, getting back to some of the ancient grains that actually are meant to grow in Arizona instead of the things that have to be watered and using up our irrigation.

Joshua Miller (22:11)
Wow, that's amazing.

Great point there with that. So in terms of the decision making process, so school is looking to buy some equipment, arguably, who should be involved in those decision making processes?

Chef Robert (22:46)
Well, I find it usually starts with the director because they're in charge of all of that. So the director is responsible for budgets, responsible for going out and securing grants. But then they will pChef Robertably, when they come into my kitchen, I'm usually seeing the director, somebody from facilities, pChef Robertably somebody, the nutritionist is pChef Robertably going to be involved. And they are pChef Robertably going to bring in one of those cooks that's going to be using the equipment and get their feedback. And because the director's not cooking, but that roast cook or that kitchen manager needs to be involved in that process because it's going to be implemented in that. And they're going to be the one who has to use it on a day -to -day basis. So I would strongly suggest involving all those people in the process so that you get all that feedback and you know that it is truly the right piece of equipment for that kitchen.

Joshua Miller (23:53)
Absolutely, it should be a team decision, not one person at the top. Definitely, I agree with that. So, you know, as a closing question, is there any tip or advice that you want to give to school administrators or decision makers and how they approach equipment? If it's been an afterthought up to now and maybe they're thinking, okay, maybe we should pay attention, more attention to this moving forward, what's the first tip that you would want to give them?

Chef Robert (24:14)
Pretty much everything we've been saying I would start reaching out to the manufacturers' reps and start researching the all the different brands of whatever that piece of equipment is that you're looking for and find out you know Again, you know, what are the features of it? What are the drawbacks of it? and get that information from that that manufacturers rep, hopefully they've got a chef on staff because we're usually, we know what that piece of equipment is going to do. And we are going to tell you honestly, is it the right fit? Because I know that at least from Ignite standards, when that equipment's installed, I go on site and I do the training. So I'm not going to oversell anything because I don't want to have to walk into that kitchen and somebody goes,

Well, you said it's going to do this. And I'll be like, well, not really. No, I won't do that because, well, first off, our company, that's not the way our company works. And that's not part of our core values. But I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to be put in that position that I have to lose my reputation as a cook saying it doesn't do that. I'm going to be honest with you straight up, straight up with that. Um, and then I would.

Chef Robert (25:52)
Also, besides working with the manufacturer reps, I would call my friends who are directors of other districts, other schools, other kitchen managers and talk to them and hey, have you ever used this piece of equipment or what piece of equipment do you use under this category? And why do you use that? And how has that worked for you? And what has the support from the factory of the local rep community been on that piece of equipment for you when you call them. Things are gonna break, you know, but does that company stand behind it? Does that company get warranty service out there right away? If it's out of warranty, you know, who is the authorized service provider and do they show up? Do they show up with the parts? Are they professional? You know, and get all this equipment, talk to your friends, find out, you know, who's using what and see what they have to say with it. And I'm sure you're going to get some good, honest feedback, and they're going to steer you in the right direction.

Joshua Miller (26:56)
Absolutely. And definitely want to add on to that. Don't wait. Don't wait until that equipment is constantly going down, down, down. Start being proactive and getting the pulse of what the state of your equipment is today. And you should have a revolving plan, essentially. Unless you're brand new, everything is just fresh out of a crate and installed. You should pChef Robertably have some things to start thinking about, whether it's for the next couple of months or the next year or two.

Well, even if the factory built it right, the installers may have made a mistake. So even with brand new equipment, there's always something that's gonna happen there that got past the punch list. And yeah, you're gonna be calling for warranty service because something happened.

Joshua Miller (27:31)
Yeah. I bet they're those headaches too. Yeah especially during the COVID era when a lot of manufacturers had to shift. Yeah, that's a good point. Well, thank you, Chef Chef Robertert, for tuning in and helping get through some of these questions here. And how can people connect with you if they want to continue the conversation or get involved with Ignite Food Service?

Chef Robert (27:45)
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

Well, a couple of things. Like I said, we also have a Culinary 360 podcast. So you can go to YouTube or wherever you get your podcast from and check out the Culinary 360 podcast. If you go to ignitefoodservice .com, that is for our entire company. And there's a tab for getting a hold of the culinary team. And you can come directly to the culinary team if based on whatever region you're in, Chef Luke for the Mountain States. Me for the Southwest and Chef Ryan for the Pacific Northwest, and be able to reach directly out to us. And we'll respond to an email. And maybe even if you want us to call, we'll start that dialogue. And we can just start to figure out what's going on and where can we be of some sort of assistance. We do events in our kitchens every month, each one. So you're welcome any time to come here.

And like I said, you know, if you are part of an SNA organization in our region and you want to do a chapter meeting, reach out. My kitchen's your kitchen.

Joshua Miller (29:13)
Definitely take advantage of that. Check out what they are doing and thank you for everything that you're doing to contribute to School of Food Service and improvements. So everyone until next time for me I am signing off.