Summer 2013... NACUFS Intern Style!: Woah We're Half Way There.... Week 4 at UGA

WEEK 4 IS COMPLETED! Where has the time gone? This past week we spent a lot more time on tasks for our final projects (the banquet and Scott Hall project). I was happy that we previously learned about the other areas within UGA food-service because it was easier to visualize and understand how things are going to work out in the future.

MONDAY—Project day

In the morning Meghan and I headed off to Snelling to meet Gregg who is one of the managers at Scott Hall in the fall. Gregg is in charge of our project for Scott Hall, we are making build charts for menu items as well as temperature and safety guideline charts. We met with him to go over the exact requirements of our assignment and we also got to look at examples of these items in Snelling. Snelling did not have build charts which we are going to be making, but we came up with a game plan on how we are going to attack them and Gregg approved. After we got all of our information we took temperatures for all of the line items and milk dispensers. We did this so we could understand the flow of the chart and how it correlates with the line and also how help us make the most efficient chart for our project. Something I found interesting from this assignment was that you had to test the temperature of the milk coolers as well as the temperature it dispenses at to ensure it is at the proper temperature.

Monday afternoon we headed over to The Summit where we will be hosting the Freshman Closing Banquet to go over the menu with Bryan (unit manager) and Sam (Chef). We went over the recipes which Meghan and I had found as well as changed some ideas. We collaborated throughout the whole meeting to try and make the items that we wanted work. It was a little challenging because it will be buffet style and we had to think about items in terms of how they will hold on the buffet. By the end of the meeting we pretty much finalized our menu; both our salad and desserts were subject to change. At this meeting Bryan also helped us write two of our recipes which we would be doing a test run on later in the week. Like I said before FoodPro is its own world and we had to write the recipes according. The food items have to be put into chronological order, the first one being the first item that is used in the steps of preparation. The items also require having a pounds or ounces label when being entered into FoodPro.

TUESDAY—Construction/Inventory

On Tuesday we started our day off by heading to see the progress of Scott Hall both exterior and interior, so we got to sport our stylish hard hats again! For the most part the exterior is complete. The circle for the bus is complete as well as most of landscaping. The inside is a different story. The meeting was different than the construction meeting we sat in for Bolton because the Scott Hall project is much further along. Instead of sitting around a table and discussing the progress we walked around and inspected and made sure it was up to UGA Food Service standards. Since the project was not started by Food Service there have been many obstacles along the way dealing with size and efficiency of the space. Although, it did look more complete than the last time there was still some areas of concern. Some problems that we ran into were shelves that were going to be holding plates were not caulked and it left a space in between the shelve and the back wall. This was both ascetically displeasing as well as functionally, because it can cause water to go back in there a rot as well as increase the chances of the gap to get larger. Secondly, was the ceiling tiles being used in the back of house. There is a code of some kind that requires the ceiling tiles to be smooth so the whole surface is able to be cleaned. The company ordered perforated ones and could not be used. With an inspection coming up soon this needed to be dealt with in a timely fashion. There were a few other ascetic problems, but the biggest concern/issue was the gelato and deli case. When the counters were being built it was either measured wrong or communicated incorrectly how they wanted it to look, but the end result was a substantial gap from the cases to the counters. It looked bad and the Food Service department was displeased. They worked with the construction company to come up with a fix for the gap so we will see how it turned out at our next visit to Scott Hall.

Scott Hall Exterior

The Niche from the lobby

Progress of The Niche

The Gap between Gelato Machine and Counter

The Hearth where the pizza we helped make will be cooked

Gap at the Deli counter

Missing Caulk

After the construction meeting I headed over to Dawg Snacks to help them with inventory. They do this once a month at each of their retail operations. There are some items (don’t individually scan) like salt and pepper that have to be done by paper and pen and then entered later manually. I got to help with the easier process of inventory. I went around with a PDA and scanned each item, counted them and entered that into the PDA. Later in the day the PDA’s are collected by managers where they are then plugged in at their central location and inputted into FoodPro. After I took inventory I headed back over to their offices where Stuart taught us a little about inventory management as well as help answer some of the manager’s recent questions. Stuart answered questions on why some items are highlighted blue and others are red. The red ones indicated that an item is higher than what is standard. This can either be a favorable or unfavorable variance because it may have sold more that they predicted (favorable) or there could be too much damaged inventory (unfavorable). Stuart also talked about the Food Cost %, which also was a flash back to accounting (Thanks Jeff). We did the cost of goods sold, Beginning inventory + purchases- ending inventory will get you your cost of goods. We were not able to calculate the food cost because there sales for the week were not in yet. One thing that was interesting to me was that their food cost is always MUCH higher on the last week of the month because it is when their inventory is taken into account and calculated.

WEDNESDAY—FoodPro/Experiements

Today we met with Shelly who is the head chef at Bolton who was recently transferred from The Summit so she has a lot of knowledge about the banquet. She taught us about forecasting and their process of reviewing the success of a menu item. Once a semester she goes through the cycle menu and decides which menu items worked and which did not. I think it stinks that although an item may be a total flop they have to stick with it for the whole semester because that is what the menu says, but I understand the difficulty that would come with changing it. We went through Tuesday night’s dinner and inputted the forecast and service needs. It needs to be edited because the number they actually used on that day may be different from what FoodPro predicted and it needs to be updated for a more accurate number in the future. In order to do this the cooks preparing the dishes need to write the amount they actually used, how many pans it produced, and the left over items at the end of service. To figure out the portions served requires some math, but as long as you know the primary/dominant ingredient (sometimes takes investigation in FoodPro) you can find out how many portions were served from the amount prepped, which involves conversion and cross multiplication.

After visiting with Shelly we went to Bryan Varin’s office and he helped us enter our recipes we made with Bryan Haymans into FoodPro. The reason we went to his office is because there is limited access to certain areas of FoodPro. This is partly so someone doesn’t enter/edit a recipe and forget to tell the other staff to edit the nutrition information and my plate food app. He taught us that certain items need to be measured in weights. Bryan will send the recipe back to the chef if they do not have them in the correct weights because it will take too much time for him to convert it and then enter and it is not his job to do that. When you enter the name of the recipe it needs to be in all caps and we added the tag FC13 to be able to identify it is being used for the Freshman College Banquet 2013. Another part we covered is the process pointer which puts a tag on your item if you want it chopped, shredded, sliced thin, etc. which enables you to leave that detail out in your preparation steps. In our recipes we had shredded cheese as a process pointer but realized we ordered sliced cheese, which cannot be shredded (at least easily). We had to make a few calls but realized we could get a block of provolone cheese from Larry’s Giant Subs inventory and go from there. Those are some of the steps Bryan has to go through to be able to complete a recipe input.

Upon entering our recipes into FoodPro we finally were able to test two of our menu items which are Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza and a Filet Stuffed Philly Cheesesteak. I have still yet to reveal our theme, but you can take your guesses. We worked with Shelly and Sam and encountered a few problems, which is why we are doing the test run.

Meghan and Sam

Working hard with sam

Pizza: We decided to try out two different tomatoes to decide which would make the most authentic Chicago Style Pizza. We choose to try Roma tomatoes and our method of preparation was tomato concasse and our second tomato was canned Pome tomatoes. We then added the same spices to each batch and prepared our crust. Our crust is the most important element in this dish because we need to make it deep dish! Meghan learned from friends that a secret ingredient in a good deep dish is adding beer to the yeast mixture. When we were preparing the crust we did this, but may have let the yeast and beer sit too long because it did not rise as much as we liked. Another problem could have been the temperature of the proofer because yeast is killed when it is exposed to a temperature too high. Overall, we were please with the pizza but have more work for our crust and possibly a new pan to cook our crust in because it may have been radiating too much heat.

The Two Different Pies

Pies made into one for tasting purposes

Philly Stuffed Filet: This was a much easier process than the pizza but equally as tasty. First, we prepped the ingredients by julienning the peppers, onions, and mushrooms and then sautéed them on the flat top. The steak was prepped by first placing the filets on the grill and getting grill marks we then stuffed the steaks. We decided to try two stuffing methods the first one we cut horizontally through the side and the second one we cut a vertical slit in the top and baked them to finish cooking. To top it off we made a demi-galce port wine reduction with mushrooms, which was fantastic (thanks Sam).

Finished Projuct

Posing with the steak (love my hairnet)

THURSDAY: Tate Café and Interviewing

We arrived at The Tate Café in the Tate Center to learn about their operation. This location is a retail operation. They have three different food locations- Larry’s Giant Subs (Franchise), Barberitos (Franchise), and Hoitei’s Asian Grill. They added Hotei’s as another option. We learned how each location operates, money-handling, and their management styles. We talked to one of their newest managers on how she adjusted from being a student supervisor. She said it is important that you build the barrier between manager and friend and that it can be a fine line. We helped work at Larry’s Subs and also learned Louis method of killing drain flies—the vacuum!!!!

Throughout the day we spent time with Susan and the managers of retail, catering, and the Tate eateries to conduct interviews and discuss. It was interesting being on the other end of an interview and seeing what to look for. We conducted four interviews and had three slots to fill. We discussed each position and what would be necessary of a candidate and the decision was made from there.

FRIDAY: Administration/Marketing/Work Day

First, we met with Cindy Malcolm in the Food Administration Office. Most of their tasks are being a liaison with the university whether it is payroll, accounting, or purchasing. Something very important is to make sure they are abiding by the same rules and policies as the university. The whole administration office is in charge of hiring and firing, paying bills, and following rules. She told us about different positions within the office. Dan the meal plan man reconciles student accounts with the university. He also looks to see how many times a kid goes in and out of facility and the times in between. This is to catch if they are swiping their friends in or passing their ID off to another student since they have unlimited entry all you can eat dining facilities. Dan also works closely with the athletic association and their program.

Cindy then went into her job and requirements. She takes care of budget accounts and reports as well as making sure they are paying what they need to and if they are staying close to budget. Around March or April is when they put together their new budget for their fiscal year starting in July. She starts by first predicting the revenue and then gets the cost of goods as a percentage of revenue. Cindy also informed us that they set up capital expenditure budgets if they are buying equipment and this will never be taken from their operating expenses. There are also purchasing card (p-card) regulations and rules that can result in disciplinary actions if the employees do not follow these guidelines. Then she told us about how their pay works and that there is a minimum salary for full-time workers which breaks down to about $10/hour. They have different pay scales for cook 1, baker 1, and kitchen staff 1. Finally, she told us about certain bonuses that their student employees can get if for instance they work on or before the first day of class. In that case the student will receive $0.15 more an hour. I thought that was a great way to motivate the students without completely breaking their bank.

After meeting with Cindy we met with Beverly who is in charge of HR. She informed us of how small the department use to be and how you could walk into the HR office and ask for a job and be put to work. The main things that they do in the summer are attend different fairs on campus to attract student workers. Another way they get student workers is by advertisements on the busses and word of mouth. In order to get full-time mangers and chefs they post on the NACUFS website and then the individual units proceed with the interviews. Her job deals a lot more with the full-time employees because she needs to hold sessions to inform and teach them about their benefit package. Also she has to work closely with them on policies such as FMLA. Since FMLA is 12 week job protection and does not guarantee pay they have shared leave donations where other employees can donate hours of leave to an employee. The donator has to have 120 hours minimum balance to be able to donate and it limits the number of hours received to 480. Beverly also works directly with units if there is a personnel issue, suspension, or termination. The thing that is tricky with this is that it needs to be accepted by Employee Relations before you can terminate an employee.

From Beverly we moved on to Allison where she informed us with what she can help us make for the banquet. Meghan and I got to express our creativity this afternoon by working on pictures for banners, menu item design, and the overall menu design. We had a lot of free time to do this, but Allison also taught us about the marketing department. In the recent years they did a lot of redesign on their menu books as well create an email marketing program where you can click on links directly in the email. Some things she has done are update the menu signs, design better layouts for menu books, and create signs for busses, newspapers and publications. The marketing team also creates digital signage for retail locations. Overall, they want to get the customers excited about the food-service operations and marketing is the way to do it!

WEEKEND-ATL

Meghan and I were fortunate enough to have Marcus (Summit Manager) take us to Atlanta and show us around a bit. We went to a Braves came where they gave me trouble for being a Phillies fan and tried to get me to do the Tomahawk Chop (I REFUSED)! It was a really great day and fun to see another sports facility. He also took us to a park to look at an awesome laser/firework show which got us excited for the Fourth of July!