Meeting Meals

 What meeting and event groups want for dinner: healthy, locally-grown and bite-sized selections, combined with star service. These are the trends sweeping the tables in several Midwest destinations. Event menus are a dynamic element of the food and beverage business that offers constant change and opportunities for creative solutions. In today’s economically challenged times, the job has grown even more interesting.

With an influx of celebrity chefs claiming airtime on various TV channels throughout the last decade, a large percentage of viewers have gained knowledge of and exposure to changing food trends. Food and beverage personnel are now challenged to meet public perception standards, delivering impressive meal functions without breaking the bank.

Here, a few minds in the food and beverage arena share their perspectives on working with meeting and event groups.

: What interesting food trends have you seen lately in meeting and event menus?

Alvaro Beltranena: In general, as people have become more sophisticated and educated in terms of food, we have to be even more creative with the way we present the food products to our clientele.

Stepping away from the traditional chafer is probably one of the most popular trends out there right now. The traditional line, where you have the skirted table, the chafing dishes... there’s only so much you can do with that. We do different presentations. We’ll actually set up a demo kitchen as part of a pasta station, for example. We build a mock kitchen in the event area, and we have our chefs making pasta to order.

What we’re seeing more and more of are the bite-sized, mini desserts presentations. We look at the dessert shooter format, where we take a shot glass, and we layer it with different types of cakes: strawberry shortcake, angel food cake, strawberries and whipped cream; different tri-colored mousse with dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate; parfaits, and so on.

Nick Maloney: People [really like] to customize their own menus. They come in and look at what we have to offer, and they have the price point in mind. A lot of people are customizing their menus to save money or to add the “wow” factor for their companies.

David Fischer: The client is more cost conscious and working to become a bit thriftier. Service is also an area that has changed. More people are wanting to taste-test food, meet the chef, things along those lines. They’re looking for higher levels of service.

One other trend is just moving more toward seasonal menus, so that costs can be controlled in terms of the products that are being purchased. Another trend is fusion... combining different geographical foods, [such as] Thai food with French, and American with Indian.

MM: How have changing lifestyle trends changed group menus?

AB: We had the big carbohydrate craze, which is still very prevalent. We see that there’s a whole lot of inclination toward eating meats and leaner foods. People tend to be a little more adventurous. We have to be in touch with what’s going on out there, with what the general public is eating and what the food channels are telling people to eat. Whereas, a few years back, the term micro greens was something you would only hear in a high-end restaurant, it’s almost a part of the everyday lexicon of a certain segment of our market.

DF: It’s a continuation. For quite some time, people have been very health-focused. People [are] looking for organic foods, low-fat foods, low-carb, sugar-free… things along those lines.

As far as changing trends go, even in the Midwest, we’re not excluded from the green theme that’s been sweeping the country. People are looking to replace sparkling bottled water with sparkling tap, looking toward foods that are grown locally, and such.

NM: Lighter fare is more popular now than I’ve seen it in past years - olive oil vs. butter, simple things like that. [Other preferences include] natural products; small bites - having a lot of things to choose from, where you can have just a little bit of this and a little bit of that; local products.

We’ve found that people respond well to things we either grow here or things we get in our area. Barbecue sauce that is made at a company here in town, or cheese from Maytag Dairy Farms just across the river in Iowa... things like that, people are beginning to appreciate more and more.

MM:  In what ways have you worked with groups to add flair to meal functions?

DF: When we’re talking about economic times and the idea that clients are becoming more cost conscious, at the same time, that’s not always necessarily true. There are still people out there who won’t sacrifice. Groups that have budgeted for extras appreciate the idea that we’re able to collaborate with decorators to give them the sort of high-end appeal they’re looking for.

NM: A lot of people now are looking to get away from buffets and plated meals. We’re seeing a lot more people wanting different stations throughout the room, possibly with an attendant at each station who can describe what’s going on and tell them where the food or wine is from.

We do a lot of dinners in some pretty unique settings: local brewers, local wine growers. There’s nothing better than when you go to a wine dinner, and you can talk to the guy who actually grew the grape, smooshed it, aged it, bottled it, labeled it... it gives you a greater appreciation for the product. We deal with each group on an individual basis.

AB: We try to work together with as many groups as we can, in terms of making their event more exciting. The best avenue to do that is having our chef interact with our guests. That in itself reassures the client there is an artist creating their meal. The presence of the chef during the booking of the event, and the presence of that same chef at the event, with the client and the guests… that always creates a very positive impression.

MM: Have you adapted your offerings in response to current economic woes?

AB: We’re focusing on bundling menus and offering our clients added value through upgrades, in terms of giving the clients more for what they’re paying. We see that our clients, much more in this economy, prefer to pay one price, as opposed to paying a la carte. That’s really a direction we’re following as well.

DF: Our chefs use their creativity. We do things on a case-by-case basis, depending on what the clients have to work with. One interesting thing that’s been introduced is what we call “day of week” pricing, based on demand. We may be able to work to adjust our pricing based on [a group’s] ability to be flexible.

Generally speaking, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday may be higher demand dates for people holding meetings, so if they’re able to have their meeting on Monday or on Friday, then they can potentially take advantage of more cost-efficient pricing.

MM: How can working within a group’s budget stretch your creativity?

DF: I think the creativity comes from us being able to take our catering team and combine with our food and beverage people and our chef and our banquet team and look at ideas on a case-by-case basis. Our collaboration on the inside is always very communicative with respect to what a client might be trying to accomplish. We’re no strangers to creativity and, certainly, we want to work inside the parameters of these economic times.

NM: Give them the best deal you possibly can, but don’t do something outrageous for somebody that they’re going to expect time and time again. [Clients] come in and say, “Okay, we’ve got x amount of dollars, we’ll be here for five days, and we want to switch up our meals a bit.” It’s important to have that interaction with somebody who’s going to be in charge of the event.

Talking with them, getting down to the bottom line, figuring out exactly what it is they want to see and what they can spend... it’s a lot easier if there’s not a third party involved, if you’re getting that information directly from them, as opposed to getting their thoughts from a catering sales manager.

MM: How can different formats or serving styles impact food and beverage costs?

DF: We get calls from people who are looking at trying to keep things on the less-expensive side, so they plan for passed hors d’oeuvre or an hors d’oeuvre reception of sorts. It depends a lot on the time of day.

There’s sort of an interpretation that buffet meals can be more cost efficient, [and] nothing could be farther from the truth. My feeling on this is to direct people toward plated meals, because our ability to execute portion control and reduce waste based on plated meals vs. buffets is certainly [higher].

NM: We think the least expensive way for both the client and us is to give them the option to have dinner or lunch or breakfast in the dining room, because we don’t have to have a banquet manager there [and] we don’t have to have extra banquet staff there.

The servers and the restaurant manager are already there, whether we have zero reservations or we have 500. Bringing somebody into a setting like that, as opposed to having every meal private, we’ve found is a good way to save some cost on our end and provide them with a lower sticker.

AB: If we want to take it to a different level, we do multi-course meals, utilizing synchronized service. That’s when we bring out all courses, all at once. They’re always attention grabbers.

MM: How much influence do you typically have over meeting and event menu selections?

AB: Depending on the type of event, we’re able to better guide our clients in their selections. With social events, there seems to be a predetermined idea of what they want, whereas, the corporate clientele looks for more guidance.

DF: Clients vary. They certainly do. You get those who know exactly what it is they want and need; you get those who don’t. We have a great ability to exercise our expertise in terms of helping them figure out which direction to go and what, specifically, is going to work best for them. Our goal with anyone is to identify the wants and needs, then ask the right questions, so we know what kind of guidance it is we are able to exercise.

NM: It’s different, group to group. Some groups come in, and they talk to a sales manager, send them an agenda, send them a price. We send them back our menus, they say, “Okay, we’ll have this buffet this day, this buffet this day,” and it’s done, and I don’t know anything about it until I get a banquet event order.

I’m definitely the last say as far as the price goes. If someone wants to wheel and deal, that goes through me. It’s a lot easier for me to know, from a food standpoint, exactly what it is that they want if I talk to them directly. It’s important, as a chef or as a food and beverage director, that you’re involved with the client and you’re talking to them. They can put a face to the person who is making their food. If something goes wrong, there’s no liaison to blame.

MM: What do you want to hear from a meeting or event planner with whom you are working for the first time?

AB: When is my guarantee due? Meaning: when are we going to know how many people you’re going to have? Here’s my budget; what do you suggest? And the best one: I have an endless budget; what do you suggest?

DF: We want to hear about their flexibility. Are we able to work with them to be able to determine a date that makes sense for their event? We want to hear their budget up front. More than anything, what we want to hear from them are the questions that help us set them up for success.

NM: I like it when people come in and they’re really enthused about the food, asking if there’s flexibility in the menu, asking if there are special offerings. Another important thing, especially with large groups, is them asking us what can we do for someone who has a gluten-free diet, what can we do for this person who is vegan. Having that information, and having those questions asked early, saves us a lot of scrambling the night we’re doing a party, and all of a sudden we have ten vegetarians. It’s a lot easier to make a group happy if their meeting planner is enthused about it and if they’re really trying their best to make an event special.

MM: If there were no budgets in the world, what would your dream event look like?

DF: My dream event is always where we exceed the client’s expectations and then are able to reap the fruits of that for the best form of advertising, which is word of mouth. As long as we’re able to meet and exceed expectations, then we’ll make it through these times without any challenges.

NM: Some themed food stations; upscale, creative beverages; entertainment; a group that really wants to be special. And repeat business. I love to see contracts come through that I’ve seen three times already this year.

AB: One where a guest doesn’t have to ask for absolutely anything. The service star just performs... silently. In other words, the service just happens for the client. You don’t feel the servers around you; you don’t hear the servers around you; it just happens.