Supporting chefs to have amazing culinary careers

There is something very special about being a chef, putting on a chef coat and feeling a sense of pride and belonging with the Sodexo teams across the globe.??To celebrate International Chefs Day later this month, I’d like to take a moment to recognize my fellow chefs who create delightful food experiences, cook with passion day in and day out, and share my enthusiasm for developing culinary talent.?

Developing culinary skills at Sodexo

The skill and passion I see from our team of chefs around the world is truly amazing.?At Sodexo, we believe in investing in, nurturing and developing talent through training opportunities and unique experiences.?Our chefs have many opportunities to build their skillset and grow their careers.

Our Global Chef Program, an international chef residency, provides an opportunity for Sodexo’s top chefs worldwide to travel and share their native cuisine and culture abroad. The program enables them to deliver an international culinary experience to our clients and guests, demonstrating the global reach of our love of food. Covid-19 required us to adapt to a virtual format due to travel restrictions. Recently a team of Swedish chefs recreated authentic Peruvian Anticuchos (a traditional dish of beef heart) for a corporate client after Chef Claudia shared the recipe virtually through a dedicated platform, showcasing the value the program continues to bring. This fall, four of our chefs will be sharing authentic flavors from Brazil, Poland, Belgium, and South Africa in a semi-virtual format, bringing their culinary expertise to various client sites throughout North America.?

Our virtual Chef Academy is another training opportunity for our chefs and great way to bring together our culinary community.?This an online learning and development program for Sodexo chefs around the world, covering best-in-class practices and specialist techniques.?The extensive program connects our culinary community with each other, and it also introduces some of the tools we have (such as DRIVE and Wastewatch ) in order to ensure we meet the highest standards in quality and consistency, and continue to deliver an amazing experience for our guests. This program is currently available in North America, UK & Ireland, Asia Pacific, Middle east and Africa with over 2600 Senior Chefs currently participating.

These global programs support a wealth of fantastic local training programs and competitions, designed to support chefs in their career path closer to home. For example, Sodexo’s Maison Len?tre in Paris is one of the best- known culinary schools in the world, and an excellent benchmark to quality.?4000 chefs attend this school every year! The Belgian Love of Food Academy sponsored by Len?tre opens its doors in 2019, expanding the reach of this expertise into another local market.

Internal competitions like our Love of Food Innovation Challenge, in North America, showcase and reward Sodexo’s hardworking chefs. Competitors use their knowledge, creativity and culinary passion towards beautiful and innovative dishes that illustrate the power of food in health, well-being and guest satisfaction. Competitions like this encourage talent and vision and participation can lead to growth opportunities, including training, mentoring and knowledge exchange.?

It’s all about the guest

Every chef wants to serve delicious, quality food that our guests enjoy. This means anticipating what our guests need before they even realize it, while incorporating the industry’s best practices into our offerings. Consumer preferences are always changing, and chefs work with data and insight to ensure we deliver precisely on what our guests are asking for. Our teams notably demonstrated leadership in meeting our guests’ demand for more plant-based dishes through dedicated sustainable recipe programs .???

I would also like to call out some of the work done through Covid-19, when Sodexo’s chefs jumped at the opportunity to serve their communities and make a tremendous difference requiring adaptation and the ability to implement organizational challenges to ensuring the best quality of food for our guests.?

International recognition

Thanks to the wealth of support provided by Sodexo, many of our chefs all over the world have competed at the highest level, bringing home prestigious trophies of recognition. Some of these awards include:

·????????Chef Sam Blackburn - Top Chef winner of the California Giant Berry Farms 2020 ?, US

·????????Chef Paulo Chen & team – Bronze medal winner at the 45th Worldskills Competition in Kazan, China

·????????Chef Brandon Felder & team - Best in Show honors in the savory category of the 2020 New Orleans Food and Wine Experience Culinary Awards , US

·????????Sodexo UK team – Gold winner at Hotelympia at La Parade des Chefs, UK in 2018

·????????Chef Jean-Christophe Jeanson, Chef Lo?c Antoine and Chef Fabrice Gendrier?

– in 2020 joined five other Len?tre culinary professionals in earning the distinction of

‘Meilleur Ouvrier de France’ (MOF) which translates as the ‘Best Craftsman in France’ .

?Professional cooking can be demanding and exacting work, involving long hours, to bring the best food to plates of our guests around the world. I am particularly proud of our teams, and some of the recognition they’ve received show that we have some of the best chefs in the culinary business.

These are amazing people who are really making a difference.?And don’t just take my word for it.?Find out more about what it’s like to work at Sodexo from a selection our chefs telling their stories.?