Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazines is an industry resource connecting foodservice operators, equipment and supplies manufacturers and dealers, and facility design consultants.
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operator's opinion is our own employee base. So being able to impact them from a health and wellness perspective is important. And we know for some of our employees this might be the best rounded meal they can get during the course of any given day. As a result, we see foodservice functioning as a beneft as much as it is a service. What does it look like? What does it mean to the physical composition of the dish? We try to make it simple for our em- ployees to understand what that looks like. We can show them how to navigate our cafeteria to meet their health goals, which will reduce the number of trips to the doctor. One way we do this is via a color-coded menu system that takes customers from most healthy to least healthy options. We are not going to be one of those operations that will be completely prescriptive and eliminate some options like burgers and fries because we know they can leave to get them. As a result, our menus today feature a lot of freshly made dishes and items made to order — all done while taking into account speed and convenience. In other words, we try to emulate fast-casual operations in many respects. Many people don't have time to go to a table service restaurant but they still want quality meals prepared with higher quality, locally sourced ingredients. We feel pretty fortunate that our main campus is in Florida. This gives us year- round access to quality, locally sourced produce. And our proximity to the ocean provides easy access to high quality seafood. All of these efforts are paying off for us as we have seen a steady growth in partici- pation from our employees. On an average day, we serve 30 percent to 35 percent of our employees during lunch. And when fac- toring in catering for meetings, we get close to serving 50 percent of our associates. The emergence of the micro markets has allowed us to reach more of our em- ployees. In the past, we might have only been able to reach them via a vending machine. But the market allows us to help be more supportive in the form of health and wellness. People are more receptive when they are actually able to see the package, touch it and even read the label. We have taken a look at the commercial foodservice world, examined what our em- ployees were doing, why they were doing it, where they were going, etc. With this information in hand we worked with our partners, including the contract feeders that help run our operations, and tried to craft solutions to keep employees on campus and to make the options affordable. Grab-and-go is big for us, particularly in our micro markets, where we offer sandwiches and entrée salads. These op- tions are available in our cafeterias, too. Looking ahead, speed of service will remain a key issue for corporate dining. Everyone is moving at such a fast pace that we will need to cut down the time it takes for them to get their food. To that end we are incorporating more rapid-cook technology such as quicker Walco Idol TM I N D U C T I O N R E A D Y www.walcostainless.com FLATWARE STEAK KNIVES HOLLOWARE CHAFERS BUFFETWARE The NRA Show • Visit us in Booth 2048