Most of those who have worked in the F&B industry either in hotels or in standalone restaurants do remember or might still be working with a chef /Head chef who comes from what we call it #oldschool , where these chefs tend to keep the secrets of cooking in their own hands and tend to share some or none of their kitchen recipes with their kitchen staff , what they do is that they delegate part of recipe making to different sections of kitchen staff and they do the final mixing and adding of last dash that will make a particular dish successful , this can be contributed to many reasons ,could be a way of protecting their secret recipes from leaking out to competition , some might be doing so in order to secure their jobs as some say if junior staff can do it all , one day owner might not need them ! well with all respect to whatever reason that could lead head chefs to keep the kitchen recipes for themselves only there is an impact of this on staff, operations and business which i am going to address in this article.
First, i have to agree that one big challenge in existing days is staff turnover and overall staff tend to work for less periods and are less loyal than in the old days , this can definitely lead to the fact that anyone working for a successful restaurant / franchise to simply take all recipes with them to implement in their new workplace ! still this is not end of the world and business has to carry on and we all know that in the era of social media we can get the best recipes online with a click , just surf on Pinterest as an example and you can open a restaurant by following the recipes that are available on this website !
That means this should not be the concern and worry of Kitchen heads and business owners , instead Modern kitchen school calls for true leadership , where a head chef should be inspiring to his team and should empower them and educate them and let them grow and as we say a good leader is someone who prepare his/her students or staff to become better than them !
F&B and restaurant industry have changed a lot in the past 10 years , in the new era staff are looking for new places that present a real challenge for them and let them learn and develop and be empowered ! so old school chefs will only demotivate their staff if they continue with that mentality and few will accept to keep working under their helm !
Yes there are no more secrets in our business , resources are available for everyone online , however "Consistency" is the main challenge to any restaurant or F&B business ! knowing a recipe is one thing and keep making it the same time every time is the challenge ! here comes the role of nowadays head chefs to implement discipline and ensure kitchen preparations consistency so that they win their customers' loyalty who will always come back to enjoy the same taste and flavors of their favorite dish !
When it comes to impact on business , imagine what will happen when a head chef who has all recipe secrets with him/her are either absent or will leave their workplace and no other team members are empowered to do the job that they used to do ! here we can say this might be the beginning of the end of this particular F&B workplace !
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