Innovation from Culinary Experts Wearing Many Hats

For our Griffith Foods chefs, no two days are alike. From ideation to marketplace (or kitchen) launch, we rely on our chefs for more than just their invaluable culinary expertise—they’re hands-on at almost every touchpoint. We trust their creative spirit, industry understanding, and production know-how to ensure our customized solutions exceed taste, performance, and quality expectations.

Keeping the Reins on Culinary Creativity

From making meals inspired by Griffith’s top trends to getting deep into the technical side of product development, our chefs are creatively solving culinary challenges every day. They draw on consumer insights, food science research, sensory science findings, and their experiences to explore new flavors and ideate products that help our customers stay ahead of the curve. Creativity is at the core of our culinary experts, but our research chefs’ abilities to transform their inspiration into scalable, consumer-centric products is what helps Griffith exceed customer expectations.

One of the most critical skills our research chefs have is balancing their inherent creativity with the realities of production and the market — and that’s achieved by getting to know the customer and their customers. Armed with this understanding, our chefs can provide workable solutions in addition to a “wildcard” or two that might seem entirely out of scope. These ideas demonstrate the depth and breadth of their culinary knowledge, but the wildcard also shows that they’re forward-thinking, creative, and ready for whatever’s next.

Versatility and Knowledge Beyond the Kitchen

Many R&D chefs have backgrounds in restaurants and the foodservice industry, but what sets our Griffith culinary team apart from the competition is their broad, beyond-back-of-house knowledge. As a result, the Griffith research chefs are adaptive, flexible, and can impact various areas.

• Food science: Our research chefs can bridge the gap between the culinary arts and product development, just as the food science team can inspire culinary creations. This food science knowledge helps our chefs stay in sync with the internal teams and allows them to communicate effectively with even the most knowledgeable customers.
• Product development: Understanding the product development cycle and working closely with our internal insights and R&D teams ultimately allows us to go to market faster, deliver a higher quality product, and reach our customers’ end goals.
• Operations: Our research chefs have a deeper understanding of the operational needs of the customer. The chefs that specialize in particular segments have backgrounds in those industries and are familiar with the equipment, processes, and language used — and can apply their culinary lens to find ways to improve.

We recognize that the needs of our customers can vary — ranging from breadings to marinades and seasoning solutions. Protein processors, QSRs, and CPGs have unique needs, and every solution developed for them requires different skill sets and approaches. Our well-rounded research chefs possess the knowledge and resources to effectively serve them all, from sales to sourcing and procurement to marketing.

Critical Eye for Processes and Procedures

Our chefs’ backgrounds working in restaurant kitchens and foodservice environments give them an understanding of back of house standards that allows them to guide processes and consult on efficient procedures. They bring a fresh perspective that customers, who often become entrenched in what they do and how they do it, might not otherwise see.

For quick-serve restaurants, that value could come from streamlining these back of house processes. Rearranging equipment or reducing the number of steps in a particular process, multiplied by the hundreds of times that process is completed per day, can quickly manifest itself in higher-quality service and speed. Whether it’s reducing the amount of necessary marinade or breading, or procuring an ingredient from a different source, applying small changes to hundreds or thousands of restaurants equates to time and cost savings for the company.

Best-in-class Research Chefs

The Griffith foods culinary team is a melting pot of professionals who understand what it takes to drive value for our customers. Proactively learning our customers’ business and treating it as our own creates a competitive advantage as our chefs collaboratively bring new concepts and ideas to life. With years of experience discovering and analyzing trends, solving operational problems, and exploring unique dishes and product applications, we’re ready to develop your next customized solution.