One of the biggest challenges for many chefs is reconciling creativity in the kitchen with the realities of the marketplace. That becomes even more of an issue at restaurant chains, where the logistics of sourcing and distributing consistent product adds another layer of complexity to feeding customers.
Corner Bakery Cafe, a 184-unit chain based in Dallas, has worked to simplify that system by having the same person in charge of both culinary development and purchasing. That person is Ric Scicchitano, the chain’s executive vice president of food and supply chain.
Scicchitano discussed his job and current food trends with Nation’s Restaurant News.
Does it help that you’re in charge of both product development and the supply chain?
Definitely. I’m the person who has the great ideas, and I have to deploy and commercialize those great ideas, unlike a lot of other brands where it’s two different silos. The test kitchens all report through me, the chefs all run up through me, and we work hand-in-hand with marketing on culinary strategies. Once we develop what that’s going to be through our product testing process, then I go back to my purchasing guys and say, “This is going to happen.” We’re going to hit our cost targets, our supply chain targets, we do all the forecasting around it, so it’s a pretty efficient little model.
A lot of great ideas that culinary and marketing come up with sometimes don’t get deployed the right way because they hit a hurdle in a different department: They can’t source it or can’t get it distributed or we can’t hit the cost targets. I know early on when I’m working with chefs, whether they’re our in-house chefs or people I bring in, we’re going to work within a certain framework I put together. I have my soup and sauce suppliers. I have my protein suppliers. I have my bakery suppliers and I’ve got all my capacities needed, and if I don’t, I will go source that capacity and add it into the system, unlike in some situations where the chefs will maybe work on something and hand it to the purchasing guys, and they’ll say, “Well, we don’t have anyone to make that.”
You also haven’t gotten buy-in from purchasing at that point, and that can be a problem.
Sadly, many times it is, because those different department heads, for whatever reason, there’s conflict.
I’m in a unique position because for years I not only did the culinary work but I used to run the manufacturing facilities when we used to produce all of our bread products, and when we were part of Brinker I used to liaise with the purchasing department. [Corner Bakery Cafe is currently owned by Roark Capital].
So I have that background where I know how all the components work. Most purchasing guys can’t do the culinary work and most culinary folks can’t do the purchasing, so I guess I’m a rare breed. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’d also think that while you’re doing ideation for new menu items, when they say something like, ‘We’ll put aji amarillo in it,’ you can say, ‘No, there’s not enough aji amarillo to do that.”
I was talking to someone about ghost peppers and one of the big chains that was using them — a big giant hamburger chain — can only get two pounds of ground ghost peppers, but that was enough for their national launch. So that stuff’s like jet fuel. But they can’t get another two pounds to keep it going.
So yeah, I’ve got a pretty good pulse on what we can source and what we can’t source.
You do a lot in-house, right?
We have real kitchens. We have flat-top grills, four- and six-burner ranges, ovens for baking breads and sweets and pastries. We have bottom ovens for cooking savory things like onions and tomatoes and bacon. We’ve got chef knives for breaking down produce every day. I buy as much produce as I do protein, dollar for dollar. The produce truck’s in our bakery four or five times a week.
What kind of local sourcing can you do with produce?
It’s difficult because of our national footprint. We can do it during the summertime — we’ll promote our BBLT as bacon bacon local tomato. Our marketers got crafty with that one. We’ll work with our produce houses and say, “We’re going to use Jersey tomatoes for the Northeast and we’re going to use Texas tomatoes and tomatoes from Illinois, Michigan, Colorado.”
California’s interesting. Sourcing local tomatoes in California is probably the most challenging one. You’d think they’d have easy access to it, but [for] the big, red round tomatoes, California has to lean on maybe Nevada a little bit — or Colorado. But we source as local as we can.
A surprising trend
Do you do much menu variation regionally?
We’re doing more of it. Over the years we’ve had some small tweaks, where we might have done grits and sweet tea in the South. But we’re doing more of that now. We’ve learned over the years — we worked with green chiles a few years ago, and they play really well the further west you go. The further east you go, they like red sauces, not green sauces. So if we’re going to have green chile panini we’ll lean west with that. Up north they’ll lean more with beef products like Reubens.
For our top-selling items the mix generally plays out the same: Pomodori’s are always our No. 1 panini seller, chopped salad’s always No. 1, and Uptown Turkey’s No. 1, coast to coast, north, south, east and west, but then you get down to the second and third layers and you realize that the Reuben panini’s strong over here and the Southwest salad’s big up in Rochester and Buffalo. So we’ll leverage that. Maybe we’ll picture that one in that market and we might not picture it in other markets. That kind of intel is good. It helps drive traffic.
Are you surprised by how many more people have taken to spicy food?
We just launched a Sriracha black bean soup that’s doing really well. Three, four years ago we probably would have been a little more worried about it, but spices are playing, pork is playing, pickling vegetables in-house is playing. Roasting vegetables has always been hot, great bread’s always been hot, so we’re still sticking with the core of what we do. But the culinary landscape’s changing and we have a real kitchen and kitchen competencies, and we’re not afraid to leverage it.
What do you think it is about Sriracha that has so delighted Americans?
First off, it tastes good. I don’t care why the tide is rising for Sriracha, but we’re on it and we’re trying to lead it. We put it in our marinades and our pickling spices. It’s a nice little behind-the-scenes ingredient that we’ll blend into some things.
People are not looking for the same stuff they grew up on. They’re looking for something that’s different, whether it’s craft beer or the flavor profiles of their food. It’s a really great time to be innovating foods because people are more naturally curious right now. They’re more experimental. So you can let the line out a little bit and play with it — see what they bite on.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
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