Who's using your cooking school?

Store Equipment & Design, June, 2000

If you have an area set up for customer cooking classes, you may want to court local corporations--and senior centers.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, culinary lessons are the latest "teamwork-building retreat" fad. The Culinary Institute of America and appliance manufacturer Viking Range Corp. have already opened their kitchens to executives who want to learn cooperation by collaborating on such dishes as roasted chicken with toasted riso and braised mustard greens.

For as much as $9,000 a day for groups of as many as 12 students, executives' personalities are analyzed as they cook. Consultants who lead the classes say the students' true colors come out: The "detail person" oversees the ingredients, the time manager keeps everyone on schedule and the social type makes sure everyone gets along.

From Japan comes another idea: Those efficient executives who once had American corporations running scared are now retiring in droves--and feeling at loose ends. Many are developing hobbies for the first time, according to the Wall Street Journal, and cooking schools are one area that's booming with retired businessmen. The Better Home Association cooking school in Tokyo has 4,500 male students--mostly retirees--up from about 350 nine years ago. Those who stay home and bother their wives risk being called "sodai gomi," a term usually applied to broken refrigerators, tattered sofas and other bulky trash.

The well-documented shift in demographics here in the United States might mean this is a good time for supermarkets to offer resources--including cooking classes--for retirees feeling a little lost without their careers.