Chefs are famously adept at working efficiently, changing things on the fly and adapting to new situations. Although often it’s the chefs of independent restaurants that are given credit for those skills, the research and development chefs at chain restaurants have had to flex those muscles this year as they faced supply challenges, drastic sales declines and shrunken budgets.
In a recent video conversation sponsored by Campbell’s Foodservice and hosted by Nation’s Restaurant News, six of those corporate chefs and a Campbell’s representative discussed how they adjusted to the changing demands of their jobs and their customers and how they expect to come out of this stronger than before.
Below is a version of that conversation edited for length and clarity.
The participants:
Ciarán Duffy, senior corporate executive chef at Subway
William Eudy, corporate executive chef of McAlister’s Deli
Jennifer Keil, senior culinary manager at Schlotzsky’s
Bobbie Huston, national account manager at Campbell’s Foodservice
Sharon Lykins, senior director for product innovation at Denny’s
Joel Reynders, vice president of culinary and executive chef at Tijuana Flats
Cammie Spillyards-Schaeffer, vice president of culinary and menu strategy at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
NRN: How has your menu research & development process changed since the pandemic started?
Spillyards-Schaeffer, Cracker Barrel: This has been a great opportunity to make menu changes that we were planning to make.
We're trying to balance how we simplify with less labor in the kitchen [while making sure] we add innovation, and continue to move the menu in the way that we want to.
Our chefs are still in the kitchen every day. We're socially distancing the best that we can, wearing masks. We’ve got half the group virtual, half the group in the room, so it is a little weird, but we're trying to keep it as normal as possible.
Lykins, Denny’s: For taste panels, whereas we might have flown somewhere to oversee a panel in the past, now we’ll have a GoPro camera in a kitchen and we say, "Oh, no, don't do it like that. Do it like this before you serve it."
William Eudy, corporate executive chef of McAlister’s Deli
Eudy, McAlister’s: We're leaning on our suppliers a lot, and we'll have virtual tastings where we build an actual menu item. We'll put kits together [and] send them to the people on our team so they can make it. Instead of me showing you a plate of food [that you can’t taste] you've got all the means in place to make it yourself. Obviously, you don't have any specialized equipment, but we can improvise. Doing the innovation process virtually, it's pretty cool, actually. It's worked pretty well.
Duffy, Subway: Initially when it happened we were having stuff shipped to our home. We quickly realized that the absence of bread ovens and TurboChefs and what-have-you [made it] really hard to imagine all the things we were building piecemeal in one complete sandwich. So we would go weeks working from home, and then we would have one day where we came in, we would build [the sandwich] using the facilities, baking the bread. And then as time progressed more and more people started coming into building. So now we’re back on track.
Keil, Schlotzsky’s: We have a very unique product with our bread. So we did try to do some virtual tasting, but it's a difficult product to do from home. So we've just been really good about communicating with the other chefs and kept our tastings small. We also are lucky enough to have a corporate store close by, so we've done some one-on-one tastings out of there.
Reynders, Tijuana Flats: We just slowed things down a little bit, focused on things [we needed] — any kind of grab-and-go pieces that we could get into the restaurant.
NRN: What kind of supply chain issues have you had?
Duffy, Subway: When COVID hit we obviously asked our suppliers to turn the machines off [because business slowed down so much]. They turned them off right away. When we asked them to turn them back on, they said, "Six or seven weeks."
So we took the opportunity to take products off the menu. It worked out well. It reduced food costs, reduced waste. It was a good opportunity to look at the menu and clean it up quite a bit.
A lot of restaurants have wanted to cut down their menus for a long time and now they’ve felt that they could. Is that because your customers are more likely to forgive you or your franchisees are more likely to agree?
Duffy, Subway: I think the customer understands. Certainly that's what we hear. When COVID was coming and the case counts were huge and [New York] Governor [Andrew] Cuomo was on TV every day, people realized it was hugely serious. People were flexible and it worked itself out that way.
Spillyards-Schaeffer, Cracker Barrel: When COVID first impacted us with dining room closures we went to a very, very small menu. And guests were mostly very forgiving because [they] understood. We weren't sure how long they were going to be patient with us on some of those things, like corn muffins that they expect every time they come to Cracker Barrel. We didn't have those and they got very upset, but they understood. But we had to bring some of those things back quickly, and so we stair-stepped back into a little bit bigger menu and then a little bit bigger menu.
When all that volume dropped off immediately, we really looked at shelf life. We wanted of course to make sure our product was of the best quality and totally safe, but we also wanted to make sure that we weren't being wasteful at all, [so we asked] was there anything we could do to look at freezing product that we wouldn't typically freeze.
NRN: What was the problem with corn muffins?
Spillyards-Schaeffer, Cracker Barrel: As soon as you've got volume drop-offs you've also got less people in the kitchen, and we're a scratch model. Adjusting to do substantially less in the kitchen for those first few weeks was critical. We cut a few other things [besides corn muffins]; that's just one of the ones that we ended up cutting, and then we brought them back pretty quickly.
Jennifer Keil, senior culinary manager at Schlotzsky’s
Keil, Schlotzsky’s: Luckily we did have a streamlined menu that we were already working on pre-COVID. Items that were labor-intensive, we've taken a lot of that away [as well as] slower moving items, like I say, taking the money off the shelf and putting it back into our operators' pockets. We cut a little deep at first, so we added back a couple of things real quickly.
I think guests are forgiving, but there are some items that are definitely favorites that you've got to react quickly on those.
Reynders, Tijuana Flats: We were already in the process of getting ready to test curbside pickup. So that got ramped-up super-fast. We went from the idea of testing in maybe 20 restaurants to turning it on live in all 120 restaurants. It wasn't fully our choice, the vendor we were working with had a glitch: They turned it on for the whole system [instead of 20 restaurants]. So it was kind of like, "Well, we're going down this path anyhow," and then we knew we would have to figure it out. So it was kind of like a blessing in disguise.
We also looked at our proprietary items to see what stock items could work as substitutes. We did a lot of preproduct sub approvals.
NRN: Subbing out different ingredients and preapproving that makes sense, but how much of an operational hassle is it to say, "Okay, when you get this thing instead of that thing, you have to do it this way?"
Reynders, Tijuana Flats: It definitely adds a layer of complication, but the benefit of it was we were able to have recipes behind the subs as well. We use all fresh proteins, but in this market we definitely had to send some into the freezer and then bring them back out. So instead of being forced into it and the restaurants not having the ability to have proper handling procedures, by getting ahead of it we were able to provide them with procedures.
Lykins, Denny’s: When things shut down at the beginning, with as much product as we have going through distribution at one time, that's a lot of money. And because we are mostly franchised, we had to go through the thought process of how to make sure our franchisees bear the least amount of this burden as possible.
Where we might have something that's frozen and have a cool-thaw procedure for it, during the slower times when you're not needing that immediate turnaround, we actually did the opposite and said, "How can we cook this from frozen so that they don't have to have that cool thaw and have the waste later?"
Many of these things were [already] in process, but COVID just amplified the speed at which we had to get there. We also streamlined our menu, but fans of certain items, said, "I don't think so. We want that item, and we know you have eggs. We know you can make that. Give it to me."
Bret Thorn, senior food and beverage editor at Nation's Restaurant News (top) and Jennifer Keil, senior culinary manager at Schlotzsky’s (bottom)
NRN: Where are you getting new ideas?
Keil, Schlotzsky’s: We have smaller teams than we've ever had, so we’re really leaning into our suppliers. Coca-Cola, for instance, has helped us out with a lot of data. That's where we're getting some trends on guest behavior since COVID.
People's habits have changed without their daily commutes, and we're seeing lunches later in the day. So we've really looked at the snack afternoon daypart, and focusing on pizzas, which has been really beneficial at that time of the day.
NRN: Bobbie are you getting different requests from customers or finding different ways to generate ideas?
Huston, Campbell’s: We are. Our chefs have done some videos in their home kitchens [that we’re sharing] and generating a lot of ideas that way.
Lykins, Denny’s: Datassential has been doing a great job almost weekly with their surveys, and it's been very good information to have and be able to adjust your plans [in response] to what the guest is telling you they want right now.
What we're hearing is, "Give me something convenient, give me something comforting, and give me something that reassures me." For us, it's pancakes and burgers and shakes and those kinds of things.
Spillyards-Schaeffer, Cracker Barrel: I agree. It's less about culinary-trend inspiration right now. It is more about how are consumers behaving differently. What's challenging is when you start to think about how are people going to act differently at Thanksgiving this year? At Christmas? They don't know. I mean, we probably could all tell you we don't know what we're going to do for those holidays personally.
Bobbie Huston, national account manager at Campbell’s Foodservice (top) and Ciarán Duffy, senior corporate executive chef at Subway (bottom)
Huston, Campbell’s: The other thing that I'm seeing is that safety and security are so much more important. If [customers] don't feel safe, then they're not going to venture out the front door. If they feel like it's a safe environment they can overlook some menu flaws or whatever just to be out; to feel safe; to be with, friends, to see humans again.
NRN: What are other ways that suppliers can help you?
Duffy, Subway: They already have all these great tools to data mine for us, so that's been very helpful, just to have a different perspective. But the world has changed. What we have programmed into Datassential only gives us what we ask, and what we've been asking for the last couple of years. I don't think the tools we've been using have caught up just yet.
NRN: So you've been asking the same questions of Datassential that you were used to asking, and suppliers have helped to ask different questions or to give you answers that you didn't know you were looking for?
Duffy, Subway: Yeah. And different tools, too, like VoxPop. You ask a question, and it goes to people's cellphones and they videotape themselves, and the company collects it all and puts it together for you — usually in seven days rather than three to four weeks — and you get to watch these videos. Sometimes it's amusing. Sometimes there's some good stuff in there. [We ask] What would you think if someone did this? And/or what is your ideal version of that? And can Subway do it? You [also] get passion … to see people's enthusiasm for food, which is inspiring too. So it's a fun, fun app.
Eudy, McAlister’s: We look at vendors as the culinary experts. I can't know everything about everything that Campbell's does, so I really lean on them to show me how I should be using their product.
NRN: How do you find balance between solving day-to-day problems during this pandemic and making sure you have a pipeline for the future?
Eudy, McAlister’s: We have more stuff in test now and going into test next month than we probably ever had before. With the whole onset of COVID and everyone working from home, we found we have a lot more time to actually think and innovate. It's pretty interesting to think that we got more productive outside our office. We knew what the project was, we knew what the goal was. We just got there faster. There were less roadblocks. Obviously there's always supply issues and labor issues and operational issues, but it seems that things didn't get overthought.
Spillyards-Schaeffer, Cracker Barrel: If it's a family meal bundle that we need to go because that's a need for COVID, we need to move very quickly and get that out to the field. [We balance] that with the long-term innovation work for both core [menu] and promotional [items].
We're testing more than we ever have and I think the pandemic taught us that we can move a lot when we needed to. We don't want to waste that momentum and in fact we have said, "We're not going back." So just like consumers, we're going to take advantage of change, and we'll keep moving to the field faster. I think our field operators have gotten really good at being flexible and taking on change while they're still operating in this new environment.
Joel Reynders, vice president of culinary and executive chef at Tijuana Flats
Reynders, Tijuana Flats: We also are testing a lot more than we have in the past. {But] we're trying to keep an eye on the fatigue in the field with our operators. Between what they have on their plate in the restaurant and how they're basically managing their restaurant family, as well as what they have at home in their personal life, and then us [saying], "We got to do this under this crisis situation."
Lykins, Denny’s: We really have to think about the franchisees. It's a pennies game and it's a volume game, and so we really have to think about the timing. We had some [items] that were done in focus groups and taste panels and ready to go, but you just have to wait until the time is right. The time is not right when people are losing their jobs and the stimulus checks are at an end. ... It has allowed us to really think about what the guests’ needs are going to be. I don't think that the emphasis on to-go is going to go anywhere soon, because when you find out that you can have a milkshake in your pajamas and you didn't have to make it yourself, that doesn't go away too quickly. You don't have to worry about anybody looking over your shoulder when you dip your pancake into that milkshake. It's given us some time to think long-term. There are just so many projects underway at one time because you're not really sure where this is going to net out at the end and you want to be ready for whatever outcome the world has.