Mr. Escoffier

Food & Beverage

Food and Beverage Resources within Your Community

By Marcel Escoffier, Associate Professor, FIU School of Hospitality Management

Why go Local?

"Going Global" has been a theme for management consultants, business news pundits, and government representatives for some time. Why look in the other direction? I agree with philosophers who say that we humans seem to be on some kind of giant pendulum where our attention and our emotions swing from one extreme to another.

Globalization has been a hot topic in the business world for a while now. Businesses believe that virtually every human need, every desire, every problem could be solved if only we could globalize our business operations. Aided by new technologies, all businesses embraced the idea of globalizing. The economic result of this philosophy has been spectacular. Economic progress throughout the world has been beyond anyone's expectations.

But recent scares concerning imported food and other consumer products, turbulence in the world financial markets, and the prospect of $100 a barrel oil give pause to those people who were such enthusiastic supporters of globalization in the past.

Coupled with the realization that globalization is not completely a "good thing", came the idea that the businesses across the street have something to sell. Those farmers just outside of town were still in business; in fact, they were selling their crops on the same global market that we were buying from. When we took our Toyota into the local dealership for service, we noticed that the service was being performed by people from our own community, not some mechanic imported from Japan. In other words, globalization is not an imperative. It wasn't absolutely necessary to purchase everything from outside our community. In fact, it made good business sense to buy locally.

What is Local?

As we all know from high school, the United States is divided, politically, into Federal, State, County, and Municipality entities. Socio-political thinkers also include divisions by region. Regions can include multiple states (like "The South") or can be though of as geographically definable areas with common interests (like "The Corn Belt".) I live in a relatively large city, Miami, Florida, yet it is really a part of a larger metropolitan region. One study done of the number of restaurants in the various large cities in the United States lumped Miami in with Fort Lauderdale. From a resort or climatic perspective Miami is a part of "The Gold Coast" of Florida.

Before I get too professorial, let's go back to the theme of this column. However you define the term "local" is up to you, but it should include places that your customers and employees can relate to as being a part of your community. So, my hotel drew from local resources stretching from the Florida Keys up to the Indian River citrus growing region just north of Palm Beach. This region actually is about 150 miles south of where my hotel was located to approximately 150 miles north of our location. Since we were located on the beach, the region, I suppose, also included the waters just off the coast of South Florida as well as the growing areas to the west of the city of Miami.

This is a rather large "local" community. In the Colorado ski country where I once worked, we might define "local" as the Summit county and its neighbors area, perhaps twenty miles radius around our property in Breckenridge. As you can see, "local" is largely up to you to define.

Who is Out There?

The activity most closely related to hotel F+B in any community would be farming or ranching. Even in the most urban areas of our country, like New York City, there are local farms close by (remember: New Jersey calls itself, "The Garden State".) My home has a lot of farming and ranching close by. ("Ranching" refers to the raising of animals, "farming" relates to growing fruits and vegetables.)

That bucolic picture of the farmer and the chef gloating over the fresh picked produce I mentioned earlier, is staged, but closely resembles the reality. Farmers are proud of what they do. Most are as dedicated to their field of work as your chef is to his area of expertise. Foodservice people, then, can contract with local farmers to grow specialty produce for their foodservice operation. Specialty produce include heirloom crops (food stock drawn from old fashioned varieties which, generally. are more flavorful and more colorful.) Farmers can also offer special treatment (growing conditions), such as pesticide free or organic cultivation. They can offer you alternative growing methods such as using hydroponics.

Specialty produce may include varieties not found on the market. Here in South Florida, for example, we grow many tropical fruits that rarely or never show up on the commercial market. One farm south of us grows 47 varieties of bananas. Others offer tropical fruits of weird and wonderful variety. If I still worked in hotels in Colorado or that region, I probably would want to see if ranchers there could introduce exotic species such as the much touted French beef cow, the Limousin beef cattle, or the Charolais breed.

Farming has a curse. When the crops are ready for harvest, there is an abundance of food. Prices usually drop, food is rushed to market, but much food is left to rot. The trick to taking advantage of this bounty is to contract with local farmers at planting time. They can plant varieties which ripen over a period of time. Any given farm located in the proper climate can raise tomatoes which will ripen over many weeks. Without too much pushing of the growing season, or using strains of tomatoes having little taste or texture, one farm can produce ripe tomatoes for about two or three months. Using hot houses and other growing facilities, the season can be stretched out much longer.

While different crops vary widely in their picking season (one variety of oranges is only available for one month out of the year, while other varieties are available for six or seven months), your local state agriculture agent can work with you and farmers in your community to determine what can be grown and when the crops will be available for harvest.

I would contact the local AG office for help in getting started. Everyone who I have met at the various "county extensions", both here in Florida, in Colorado when I worked there, and in New Jersey were all very helpful in setting up a program for my hotel with local farmers.

What else is available locally?

Your community colleges, many high schools, most municipal and state health programs, and local hospitals all are sources of experts who can work with your employees to train them in various areas of expertise. Home economics and culinary program people can help train your staff in many kitchen operations. The hospitals and health program people can train your people in the rudiments concerning sanitation. All of the people I just mentioned will be happy to give the latest advice on nutrition and sanitation; issues of importance both to ourselves and our guests.

If you are fortunate enough to have a college with a culinary arts or hospitality program in it, invite faculty to do food and/or wine tastings. This can be good training for your service staff as well as a great opportunity for your guests. It demonstrates to the guest your commitment to fine food and wine.

Equipment suppliers will train your people in how to use and maintain the equipment they supply. As equipment manufacturer representatives, they are more than willing to demonstrate the new equipment and work with the chef in creating menus utilizing these new cooking techniques. If you are F+B director of a large hotel operation, than contact the equipment manufacturers directly and have them come out and do training. While they are on premise, have them inspect your equipment and recommend repairs or replacements.

Finally, there are the various clubs and interest groups within your community. The late Grace Guslander at the Cocopalms Resort on Kauai had local dancers, church choirs, and storytellers at her hotel nearly every day to entertain the guests. Every community has such talented people or groups and can offer guests a peak into the local culture at least a few times a month. I have often wondered why hotels in North Platte, Nebraska never talk about the most wonderful experience most servicemen had when traveling through their community during World War II. The women of that town offered the most sumptuous buffet upstairs in the railroad station that became famous among the servicemen as the troop trains changed engines at that location. Wouldn't pictures, local women telling their tales and a buffet keyed into that delightful story make for a great event?

So, what's the bottom line?

Local food supplies are fresh, tasty, relatively inexpensive, and a great marketing tool. Being fresh, they require you to utilize them before they spoil. I would advise against canning or other preserving as the potential liability is too great. At my hotel we froze mango slices during mango season. Frozen, the bags of mango slices lasted four or five months in the freezer. We paid our hotel workers $1 per paper bag of mangoes; a lot cheaper than buying the mango through our suppliers! They were ripe, too. Don't give up your national supplier contract, think of local foods as an addition to your normal supply - as an excellent source of specials on the menu.

Building local awareness of your hotel through local purchasing or other uses of local talent is an easy marketing promotion. Local awareness boosts your banquet business as well as helping your restaurant business.

Free training by experts is also a "no brainer". Training is an on-going activity, or should be, and having local people train your employees is much more effective than having someone fly in from Corporate. The first ten minutes of the training isn't wasted while your employees ponder the accent that the out-of-towner has and why he thinks he is so great. One caveat here: "free" isn't free. You will have to pay some small amount to the agency, a donation, perhaps, or a nominal fee. But it is less expensive than flying that high-powered trainer in from Corporate and putting him or her up for the night.

Lastly, there is the benefit to be derived by product differentiation. I've written about this concept before. You need to make your hotel stand out from the other hotels in your area. This is one way of doing so. Local Indian tribes, cultural organizations, arts and entertainment troops, cooks, farmers, wine merchants, and others all can become a part of the guest activities which would make your hotel stand out from all the others. If you are located in a downtown venue, there are many opportunities to tap into the local business and social communities for guest speakers on topics such as personal investment, motivation, and the like. I once worked in a hotel in New York which had a fascinating round robin of guest speakers; from an old man who spoke once a month about the history of New York to a remarkable woman, perhaps the first partner of a major stock brokerage firm speaking on a variety of business topics.

How does anything from my last paragraph relate to F+B? Aside from the obvious differentiation one derives from offering local food and beverage products, there is the added F+B business one may derive from special events/ Guests get thirsty during such talks or performances, don't they? In addition to quenching their thirst during the event, could you encourage any of them to stop by afterward for a light snack before returning to their room? In Hawaii we calculated that sales from these events boosted our F+B sales by about $20 per guest per stay. (That's all attending the events.) Not a great deal of money, but we calculated an increase in food and beverage sales of about $100,000 per year.

Where do I go from here?

It is important to get going on this right away. A brief ( half hour or so) brainstorming meeting with your production, service and marketing managers should generate about 30 or so ideas. Encourage all ideas, no matter how off the wall or wacky they may be. You only want four or five really good ideas, so you can cross out the crazy ones later. Encouraging even crazy ideas can be a way to get really creative good ideas out on the table. This brainstorming meeting also will tell you who seems enthusiastic about going local. They are the ones to carry through on the legwork needed to implement the ideas you decide should be pursued.

Get started now and you can be up and running within a few months. Don't be discouraged if the first locals you talk to are not willing to participate. Farmers work hard and experience very small profit margins so many are wary of committing to things with no proven positive outcomes. (That's professor-speak for: they are not willing to take on more risk than Mother Nature already has given them.) Working through your county agent will help get you connected to farmers and ranchers who are willing to work with you on this.

Contacting suppliers is a good task for your steward and purchasing agent. They know who to call. The chef, unit managers and bar managers need to get involved with this.

Regarding the use of local culinary arts and hospitality educators; I have noticed that many can be encouraged to work with you if you provide some reciprocity. Offering students tours of your operations, having your managers or culinary experts visit the schools, or in some way making their job as teachers of students interested in the hospitality field will help pave the way for them to come to your hotel and work to train your people. Visiting the schools is also a good way of securing new entry level employees as well.

At my last hotel (before taking the holy vows to become a professor), I used the hotel property as a training site for fire and rescue personnel as well as a place for the health department to bring new inspectors to see how a foodservice operation can do things the right way. We even painted the pipes in the basement differing colors so the fire people could show their new recruits how major buildings are serviced with water, electricity, and waste disposal. (Guess which pipes we painted brown.) It took a lot of courage to do this, but I had taken over a newly renovated hotel property so it was a matter of maintaining the already inspected and approved facilities rather than bringing them up to code. With all those visits by state and county people (about two or three visits a month, so it wasn't a burden on our security staff) you can bet we collared some of the experienced people to also train our employees. Free health, safety and engineering training done by the people who pass on our inspections was certainly a win-win deal.

I strongly advise you to get out today and commit your hotel operation to boosting local pride and awareness.

Marcel R. Escoffier was an Associate Professor at the School of Hospitality Management Florida International University. He had over thirty years experience in hotels and restaurants throughout the U.S. Unfortunately, Mr. Escoffier passed away in September, 2009. We at HotelExecutive.com would like to continue publishing Marcel's articles on our website as a tribute to this brilliant man. The one thing we loved most about him most was his sense of humor. He would always make light of any serious situation, and this was reflected often in the articles he wrote for the Hotel Business Review. Mr. Escoffier can be contacted at editor@hotelexecutive.com Extended Bio...

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