Supermarkets lure more workers into fold; from the kitchen to behind the counter, more chefs are trading their restaurant toques for supermarket smocks - and the promise of a gentler workplace

Nation's Restaurant News, June 15, 1992 by Jack Hayes

From the kitchen to behind the counter, more chefs are trading their restaurant toques for supermarket smocks - and the promise of a gentler workplace

How is it the executive chef at Sacramento, Calif.-based Bel Air Markets can feel happier about his job in a 16-unit grocery operation than he did when he cooked at Caesar's Palace, the Stockton Hilton or the Woodbridge Country Club in Lodi?

"Because even though I'm being challenged incredibly, I'm also earning greater respect, better benefits and more time away from the kitchen - which is a blessing when you've got a family," says Michael Dadisman, who became one of the American Culinary Federation's youngest Certified Executive Chefs in 1983 and, after that, the youngest cook ever elected to the American Academy of Chefs.

Today Dadisman belongs to that rapidly expanding core of kitchen, dinning room and management staffers - estimated to number 150,000 across the United States - who are happily coping with the explosion in supermarket food-service because of the "gentler" working conditions that prevail in the grocery industry.

"Every month hundreds of foodservice people are being hired away from the restaurant side," says Arlington, Va.-based operator and concept consultant Michael Caraluzzi, who owns Bistro Bistro, a 3-year-old casual destination in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and also works with grocery chains like 384-unit Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix Super Markets Inc. to plan centralized food-preparation facilities and develop and roll out mini-food court "cafes."

Of 2,020 supermarket and grocery companies profiled in the 1992 Directory of Supermarket, Grocery and Convenience Store Chains - representing 35,954 units nationwide - 17 percent feature in-store restaurants, and more than three-fourths operate service deli departments.

Furthermore, of 1,621 convenience store companies showcased in the same chain guide - operating 64,704 units in total - 45 percent offer cooked-to-order food - and 88 percent have at least selfserve prepared food sections.

According to research by the Washington, D.C.-based Food Marketing Institute, a trade group, the average supermarket has weekly sales just exceeding $300,000, which translates to an annual gross exceeding $15 million.

And based on industry estimates that say a well-run foodservice department can generate 10 percent or more of a supermarket's volume, it's clear that grocers are taking more than just customers; they're going after and capturing the employees as well.

Though not enough of a loss to leave a gaping hole in restaurant foodservice, the growing supermarket trend nevertheless represents a real opportunity for many of the disillusioned, the unfulfilled and the burned out, according to Caraluzzi.

"Supermarkets have longevity, and a job there is going to have career orientation and more benefits," Caraluzzi said. yet such factors aren't so appealing to high-profile chefs - especially the young ones, he explains.

"The grocery business isn't for the free-agent superstar, but I would still recommend it to a lot of people in the field."

Admitting that even his own staffers could find better opportunities with a grocery chain, Caraluzzi qualifies the statement by adding, "As long as they're committed to staying in the field."

"A lot of chefs still thrive on the endless battle - on cranking out 300 covers every night," explains Howard Solganik, a Dayton, Ohio-based consultant who recommends a much quieter mind-set for chefs investigating a grocery career.

"But there's an art in perfecting the basics - improving the best potato salad or macaroni salad - in order to please large numbers of people, instead of only one table at a time," he adds.

In the site of a former Dayton restaurant Solganik has just opened a "hands-on" training facility called the Supermarket Foodservice Center, in which his staff teaches workshops in menu planning, production and merchandising to grocery operators who want a piece of the action.

"Supermarkets are thinking like operators in the ways they're preparing products for customers," says Mickey McKee, a corporate chef for Solganik now but formerly a restaurant and hotel banquet chef.

"They've identified a lunch trade - fried and rotisserie-cooked chicken and Chinese takeout - and they're getting into packaging and merchandising."

After three years with Hyatt in Cincinnati and facing the prospect of a five-year travel stint before she could get her own hotel, McKee opted for a job "teaching" deli foodservice to supermarkets and other clients.

"A lot of people said I was giving up this great mysterious part of myself, but I said there's something more wonderful in creating a meat loaf recipe," comments McKee, who has consulted for the NutraSweet Co.

"And the money on the supermarket side is as good as on the restaurant side, if not better - depending on how much responsibility a chef wants to take on," she continues.

Although supermarkets are also attracting first-time foodservice staffers - line employees who haven't before worked in the segment - most chefs and managers are migrating over from chain and independent operations.