Page 16 - gfs0118_Magazine

FOOD FOCUS: POULTRY

REACTION By the time the dining facility practiced with a couple of
Word that the dining facility planned to add rotisserie dry runs, the addition of rotisserie chicken had sold itself.
chicken to its menu spread quickly. “Our command team “You could smell the aroma throughout the whole facility,”
definitely knew about it, and I think once word got around, he said. “That started to get people’s juices flowing.”
they were, ‘hey when’s it going to be ready? Hey, when’s it On Sept. 8, Army Pfc. Jesse Parra became one of the first
going to be ready?’” he said. soldiers to order the new dish, and said he was happy with
A lengthy approval process involving meeting health codes, his selection.
satisfying safety inspections and fire department authoriza- “I love that they give the option for a high-protein meal,
tion prolonged the anticipation. “Once we got all the go’s and because I’m on a very strict diet that requires me to eat lean,”
they checked all the blocks, I’d probably say about six months he remarked.
from when we acquired it to final approval and inspection “It tastes good,” Parra added. “I feel like it was cooked very
with the fire department safety,” Cordon said. well, and it was seasoned very nicely. I should probably do
this more often.”
ROTISSERIE FRIDAY
Each day, meals in the dining facil-
ity are served around menu themes.
Rotisserie chicken was added to the
menu on Friday with the expectation
that the interest in it would increase
customer traffic on one of the dining
facility’s slowest days. “We tried get-
ting a niche in there to entice people to
utilize the DFAC here on Fort Myers,”
said Aquilano.
“We didn’t use it every day, because
the same thing every day would get old,
we wanted to keep it special,” he said.
Also, having the popular item avail-
able on Friday would contribute to re-
taining customer volume that would
otherwise be headed elsewhere to get
an early start on the weekend. “Friday, a
lot of people just start to scatter because
they are getting ready for the weekend,
and we were just trying to use that as
an opportunity to reel everybody back
in and say, ‘hey, let’s give them one last
good meal before they depart for the
weekend,’” Cordon said.
Signs point to the strategy paying off.
“We’ve heard nothing but good comple-
ments about it, everybody’s been very
pleased,” Cordon said. “I think a lot of
people will appreciate it’s the healthier
end of protein there in the lunchroom.”
“We have a large support of patron-
age because we went to rotisserie,” said
Bill Michitsch, food program manager,
Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. “They
love it; and when we do it, they’re here
for it.”
A comment card submitted by a
soldier requested that the dining facil-
ity serve rotisserie chicken more often.
“That was nice, because we do monitor
our comments daily,” Michitsch said.
—GFS
16 GOVERNMENT FOOD SERVICE • JANUARY 2018