Another Week Gone By at UGA...

This past week at UGA began with a field trip to the Nestle Stouffer's factory in Gaffney, SC. Here we saw how a large plant operates on a daily basis. Despite the fact that a large portion of the factory is automated, it still takes a remarkable number of people to operate the 10 lines at the factory. Much of the foods produced for both retail stores and college dining are made with fresh ingredients and no additives. Also every one of their lasagnas, which is their most produced product is hand laid for quality and customer satisfaction.

This week Kelvin and I learned how inventory is taken at the dining commons here at UGA by taking physical inventory of the Snelling stock room, coolers and freezers. We then learned how to enter it into FoodPro for updating and analysis and how to order more inventory for the next day or up to the 3 weeks out. FoodPro was a big part of our weeks learning. On Wednesday we learned how the chefs use FoodPro for forecasting and recipe creation and then we learned how the central food storage warehouse uses FoodPro to take all of the data submitted by all of the food service outlets on campus and analyzes it in order to process the schools needs for the coming weeks. While the semesters are a time of predictable customer counts and inventory needs, the summer is very up and down and difficult to predict.

Kelvin and I are also now very involved in the planning of one of our two final projects. This one is to organize and manage a closing banquet for the summer freshman college here at UGA, an event for around 400 people. We have hashed out some ideas and met with some of the chefs to gain better perspectives of what works and what may not work and we have chosen a Hawaiian theme. The Menu is in progress as well as many other pieces to this big puzzle. I am certain that with myself and Kelvin making the decisions and with the great help and support we have from the chefs and managers here at UGA, our event will be a great success!

Happy Independence Day to Everyone! Have a great week!