The school foodservice director had that frustrated look on her face. “This oven doesn’t work any better that the old one,” she barked.
Having already been to too many of these autumn start-up/demonstrations this month, the rep sighed. “Did you slack off [defrost] the product before trying to heat it up?” he asked.
“We don’t have enough refrigerator space for that!”
Why is it that we in foodservice are so prone to question the equipment and not the preparation process? I am often reminded of Einstein’s much quoted axiom “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
More times than not, professionals in the E&S distribution channel quickly offer a low-ball price when an operator queries us about a product. However, we rarely ask the most important question: “How are you going to use it?”
If we first understand an operator’s production system, we become so much better at providing a solution instead of just a product. This, in turn, can mean better results for the end-user, a lasting good impression and, probably, more opportunities to do business.
Recently, I was called in to trouble shoot a recurring problem with a bain marie heater. We’d been told that it wasn’t “hot enough” (whatever that means). After eliminating several design issues, I discovered that the operator’s expectations were not in synch with the equipment specs. They were overfilling the units by 10-fold and expecting a heat-up time of one-quarter of the spec. As they say on the radio talk-shows, “Do the math!” Needless to say, a simple re-education solved the problem.
In-service demonstrations are vital to an operator’s success, but scant attention is paid to training the trainers. Most startups are performed by manufacturers’ representatives, yet I am unaware of any formal programs of instruction on how to do a proper demo. The how and why of using foodservice equipment should be established early on in the implementation process.
A disconnect between features and benefits causes a disproportionate number of nuisance service calls.
Did the operator know that the food pans needed to be removed daily from his pizza table or that the ice cream couldn’t be stored overnight in the cafeteria counter? Did the in-service explain this? Did the specifier make provisions for condensate drainage on the refrigeration? Was a drain for the pasta cooker considered?
Unfulfilled expectations, combined with ignorance of the equipment’s capabilities, are a recipe for headaches on all of our parts. With foodservice equipment’s increasing sophistication, attention must be paid to the very basic notions of selection and operation. Equipment suppliers must put themselves in an operator’s shoes and understand what it is that needs to be accomplished by the hardware before jumping in with a ‘value engineered’ appliance.
We can and should make it work better than the last one.
