1/13/18
This week was spent learning the ropes of what it takes to run a catering company, which is a lot more intricate than I anticipated. I spent time learning to set up for banquets, scheduling clients and also went to work at the company’s partner bistro on George Fox University campus. Some of my work for catering included organizing rooms to suit 50+ people, making food sit on tables in an aesthetically pleasing way and working with clients needs to find the the perfect banquet format fit. I particularly liked working on the bistro as it included making sandwiches, salads (such as the “NW mixed green salad”) and espresso drinks for stressed out Master’s students (they drink a lot of espresso).
The relevancy to this internship work to my academia is becoming more intricate than I anticipated. For a company that “markets” as sustainable as they do, it’s actually more of a work in progress than an entire truth. Some sustainable accepts I’m seeing are providing a seasonal menu for clients, so right now they have their seasonal winter menu involving roasted root vegetables and NorthWest salmon. The bistro and catering company as a whole does small practices to reduce their waste, so recycling left over materials from banquets and bringing leftover food to the homeless population downtown that my manager works with.
Some sustianable practices they’d like to work towards is composting. They struggle with how to keep the food concleaned and not smelly so customers won’t be turned off (they actually hired me to help implement ideas like this). I convinced the bistro manager to start a composting bin and she did! We felt too guilty throwing out food, she will be using the compost in her own farm. Unfortunately since it’s not growing season, the Catering company and bistro are not using as many vegetables/fruits as they used to in the summer and fall from the farm. I hope to continue ways to help them find more sustainable solutions to little fixes, so stay tuned!
A new topic I’d like to look into this quarter that I’m trying to find readings for is the idea of marketing a company as “sustainable” or “natural” to appeal to customers. In reality it can be very hard or costly for companies to stay true to that word. Why do customers feel much safer hearing/seeing those aspects although it may not be 100% true?