South Africa
Secret secret...
Every Chef has his or her trade secrets and magic ingredients that define a special sauce, an unbeatable dessert or a dish that's been copied but never perfected. "We believe that these are secrets that should stay behind kitchen doors and never be revealed, because they form part of each chef's individual magic.But today's kitchen, chefs are faced with challenges that might otherwise restrict their creativity, with increased food prices, reduced staffing and tighter margins," says Craig Elliott, Culinary Head Chef of Unilever Food Solutions.
"As a company whose products are made by chefs for chefs, we have first-hand knowldedge and experience in how difficult it can be to operate efficiently and still produce a consistently hight standard of food, especially withh consumers becoming increasingly sophisticated and demanding in their expectations.
"We have a few secrets of our own to share with chefs in the form of solutions and shortcuts that will help save time, use less labour, give them more margin and add overall efficiency to the preparation of dishes. What chefs may not realise is that the use of these products will be unbeatable and in some cases even make their end product better and more consistent, while still being cheaper and easier to use. Along with the chef's secrets that define their style and individuality, there are other secrets that will help them to achieve the very best and most cost effective results."
A chef who has seen the benefits of convenience products is Marli Roberts, whose career has included working the the five-star Western Cape Hotel & Spa in Hermanus, taching future chefs how to create dises from scratch and seven years representing South Africa on the international culinary circuit, winning gold for her country. She now works as a Regional Customer Chef for Unilever Food Solutions and has experienced the enormous benefits of using convenience products.
Not everyone wants to admit that they use convenience products, but you owe it to yourself and your employer to investigate how they can help you. In come cases, it may be that they can replace your current "scratch" option completely, without any sacrifice to quality and in fact, can help to improve the consistency of your end result. In others, they may be used to replace a base that is particularly time-consuming and therefore not cost effective, and in others they can be used to replace ingredients or a step in the process, while still retaining your own trademark dish."
to assist Chefs in restaurants, hotels and canteens understand the role that convenience products play in their kitchens, Unilever Food Solutions has produced three individualised booklets for each type of kitchen, with icons identifying products that offer better value and time management, save tie, involve less labour, are cheaper and offer less wastage through portion control. The booklets describe the unique qualities of each product, their uses and applications and how they can be used to achieve cost savings and improved efficiencies. All products in the booklets are tried and tested by South African National Culinary Team.
The booklets can be downloaded by visitin our My UFS page on the Unilever Ffoodsolutions website.
