Hello! I am a distance intern from Los Angeles, California. I started my first rotations in food service management at CBS Television Studios. One of my favorite assignments was planning and managing a retail marketing and wellness event. When performing the needs assessment, my manager shared that their customers usually don’t order Sodexo’s mindful options. In order to encourage more mindful eating and test out a potential new menu item, I decided to create a theme around vegetables and called it “Drink Your Veggies Day.”
I created four recipes called: Don’t Kale My Vibe, I Carrot About My Health, Beet the Heat, and Spice, Spicy, Baby. I had so much fun coming up with names for my new smoothies, and it sure drew in customers to try samples. These were vegetable and fruit smoothies and the recipes were tested by the chef and myself. Recipe testing is very important. Originally, I thought adding tomatoes to the Beet the Heat smoothie was a good idea, but our taste test told us no. The raw tomato flavor was overpowering and did not mix well with the beets. We ended up replacing tomato with pineapple – the acidity and tangy flavor of the fruit complimented well with the earthy flavor of the beets!
In order for the event to be successful, extra attention to detail and thorough planning was necessary. The most difficult part of creating this event was that I would have to plan and execute it all on my own. This included ensuring all the ingredients were ready, setting up the decorations, preparing all the samples and smoothies to sell, and talking with customers.
This project was the perfect opportunity to get to know the customers, receive feedback on behalf of the café, and provide nutrition education. I talked with someone who told me they had prediabetes, and I spoke with one of the show’s producers whose wife was pregnant about the risks of undercooked meat, important key nutrients during pregnancy, and tips for morning sickness symptoms.
Many customers loved the smoothies and made comments like, “Why wasn’t this done earlier?” “When are we going to have this?” and “We need this!” Due to the positive response, my vegetable and fruit smoothies were eventually put out as an official regular item, one of which was bought by a famous celebrity and she really liked it!
This project helped expand and refine my skills in culinary, marketing, sales analysis, management, and more in the scope of food service management. As a registered dietitian, these are skills that are essential to have in whichever niche you will eventually carve out.
My biggest takeaways from this rotation were:
I created four recipes called: Don’t Kale My Vibe, I Carrot About My Health, Beet the Heat, and Spice, Spicy, Baby. I had so much fun coming up with names for my new smoothies, and it sure drew in customers to try samples. These were vegetable and fruit smoothies and the recipes were tested by the chef and myself. Recipe testing is very important. Originally, I thought adding tomatoes to the Beet the Heat smoothie was a good idea, but our taste test told us no. The raw tomato flavor was overpowering and did not mix well with the beets. We ended up replacing tomato with pineapple – the acidity and tangy flavor of the fruit complimented well with the earthy flavor of the beets!
In order for the event to be successful, extra attention to detail and thorough planning was necessary. The most difficult part of creating this event was that I would have to plan and execute it all on my own. This included ensuring all the ingredients were ready, setting up the decorations, preparing all the samples and smoothies to sell, and talking with customers.
This project was the perfect opportunity to get to know the customers, receive feedback on behalf of the café, and provide nutrition education. I talked with someone who told me they had prediabetes, and I spoke with one of the show’s producers whose wife was pregnant about the risks of undercooked meat, important key nutrients during pregnancy, and tips for morning sickness symptoms.
Many customers loved the smoothies and made comments like, “Why wasn’t this done earlier?” “When are we going to have this?” and “We need this!” Due to the positive response, my vegetable and fruit smoothies were eventually put out as an official regular item, one of which was bought by a famous celebrity and she really liked it!
This project helped expand and refine my skills in culinary, marketing, sales analysis, management, and more in the scope of food service management. As a registered dietitian, these are skills that are essential to have in whichever niche you will eventually carve out.
My biggest takeaways from this rotation were:
- Plan thoroughly and be organized.
- Needs assessment is CRUCIAL – you don’t want to address something that people don’t need or want.
- Nutrition counseling skills are relevant everywhere, even in foodservice management!
- Most of all, have fun! Others will buy into your excitement; Your positive energy is one of the most effective forms of influencing change.
