Slate article on Sysco

Every Bite You Take
How Sysco came to monopolize most of what you eat.

Probably not news to many here, but I found it somewhat interesting.

Seems like bullshit that any restaurant touting themselves as something other than a neighborhood joint at which to get done some good eatin' (Oh, my, what a chicken dish you've concocted, Mr. Florence. Hand me your apron. Now.) would belittle the idea of "cooking" or "baking" by taking things out of a box and serving it under what I'm sure is the assumption on the part of the diner as homemade.
A few extra raspberries on a Sysco-cake? There should be a law informing consumers about pre-processed food at restaurants. ("This chicken breast made of 100 hundred chicken breast-like parts amalgamated together in a chicken-breast-like shape. Topped with ketchup acquired from what unexploded packets there were marking the parking lot of our local McD's. Enjoy.)
I'm going to go make a drink and cook something and then eat it and then wait around to do it again.

Interesting article. My children tell me that the Sysco truck unloads frequently at their summer camp. I have no idea how much of the food is already prepared, but I suspect a lot. They always make comments when we pass a Sysco truck on the road because they think the food at their camp is terrible. Hey, it's camp, not a restaurant. Camp food is SUPPOSED to be terrible. Since I went to the same camp as a kid, I can compare and I think what they are getting is a lot tastier and healthier than the stuff they gave us when I was a camper!

That being said, while I kind of knew a lot of restaurants depended on premade food, I was surprised to hear that some of the better restaurants are using this stuff, dressing it up and passing it off as their own.

Suzy

Suzy, my mom sent me this link to the story because my sister and I have the same memories of Sysco-everything at summer camps. For years afterwards we'd always notice and cringe whenever a restaurant had sysco condiments, etc.

I think it was scooping peanut butter out of giant 5 gallon Sysco tubs that really made me hate them.

One of the giveaways for this practice is the table card: If a family-run restaurant has a half-dozen desserts pictured on a glossy stand-up card on the table... they're probably not making it themselves. One of my neighborhood restaurants does this, and if they hadn't, they'd probably make more money off me on desserts with me none the wiser.

From reading the article, I'm really shocked, shocked, that Thomas Keller would use frozen fries at Bouchon. None of the rest of it surprises me much.


It's the same monoculture issue as with everything else: a SYSCO-provided batch of frozen burgers is probably safer and more consistent than something ground by a local purveyor or in the kitchen, but if it is contaminated, so are 50,000 others across the country.

Sysco is a food DISTRIBUTOR. They bring food products to a retail establishment or restaurant or institution based on what the OPERATOR orders. And they generally do it at a pretty competitive price.

I have worked in places where everything was made from scratch (and purchased from Sysco). Likewise, some places rely on pre-made items.

I have attended a number of distributor shows over the years - Sysco, Gordon's Food Service and some regional players. Items that are generally made not bought: soups (look for names like lumberjack vegetable, etc.) desserts, salad dressings, prebreaded fried items. chicken kiev/cordon bleu, etc. It is all pretty easy to identify.

Any smart operator prefers to make the items from scratch as it it tends to be a lot cheaper in the long run to produce your own products.

Also, like MOST distributors, they offer "good, better, best." In other words, they can offer a real low price to those in the industry at the low end food operations. (Let's be blunt, some places like nursing homes have a budget of about $3 per day for food cost.) They also offer top lime products that could be served anywhere.

Speaking of good-better-best, here's a link to Sysco's 'best', Chefex:

http://www.sysco.com/products/chefex/ch ... pliers.asp

And you can even order from Murray's...

I believe they act as a facilitator - middleman with chefex, as keeping most of the products in inventory across their 50+ opcos would lead to significant shrink.

I suspect one reason for sysco doing this is simplicity - a customer does not need to request credit, open a new account, or get approval for a new vendor. And Sysco puts the order through without managing additional inventory...and they can claim to be able to satisfy the needs of high end restaurants with high end products.

One of the most disappointing experiences I had with food was last summer at the "Guinness and Oyster Fest" in Wicker Park. The Oysters lay out on trays of ice, shelled and ready to eat. I watch someone from the sponsoring restaurant wheel out a box of sysco ready-to-eat frozen oysters on the half shell and load them on to the trays.

Out of curiosity I ate one. It was as bland and flaccid as could be imagined. I wonder how many restaurants serve these oysters? I hope the number is small.

I'm surprised this thread hasn't generated more interest... or outrage... This all makes me feel much better about my relative lack of enthusiasm for dining out and my much greater interest in shopping and cooking...

*

Queijo wrote:One of the most disappointing experiences I had with food was last summer at the "Guinness and Oyster Fest" in Wicker Park. The Oysters lay out on trays of ice, shelled and ready to eat. I watch someone from the sponsoring restaurant wheel out a box of sysco ready-to-eat frozen oysters on the half shell and load them on to the trays.
Out of curiosity I ate one. It was as bland and flaccid as could be imagined. I wonder how many restaurants serve these oysters? I hope the number is small.

Wow. That's satanic...*

Antonius

*And I don't mean that in the good sense.

Queijo wrote:I believe they act as a facilitator - middleman with chefex, as keeping most of the products in inventory across their 50+ opcos would lead to significant shrink.

I suspect one reason for sysco doing this is simplicity - a customer does not need to request credit, open a new account, or get approval for a new vendor. And Sysco puts the order through without managing additional inventory...and they can claim to be able to satisfy the needs of high end restaurants with high end products.

I have never dealt with Sysco but have dealt with PYA/Monarch, Bigger Bros., Kraft, Gordons, and most of the majors. They will buy ANYTHING for an operation if you have sufficient volume. That includes things like baby formula, airline juice cups, and exotic fruits and vegetables.

ALSO, when I was in the business, we averaged a minimum of 10 deliveries a day which meant that my receiving guy had to head down to the loading dock 10 times daily to pick up food. The fewer vendors teh better.

I watch someone from the sponsoring restaurant wheel out a box of sysco ready-to-eat frozen oysters on the half shell and load them on to the trays.

Wasn't that an unhappy result of the city inspectors considering actual fresh oysters to be unsafe in such conditions?

I can understand reluctance to regard oysters as ideal food for serving by the hundreds in hot weather, though having read The Big Oyster, I know that thousands of oysters were eaten under very similar conditions in this city a century ago.

Government must expand to fill the smallest anxieties....

Ha! Ed, I read your post and laughed. One thing my daughters' summer camp now offers is pb&j and fresh fruit for those kids that turn their noses up at whatever is being served for the meal. When I was a camper we resorted to sugar sandwiches if we didn't like the meal -- we would slather a piece of bread with butter and pour sugar on it. I ate quite a few of those back in the day. Nowadays, the kitchen staff takes the Sysco peanut butter out of those 5 gallon tubs and puts it in tiny one-serving recyclable plastic tubs with lids. Much to my childrens' dismay, I have been known to grab a few on my way out of the dining hall along with a plastic spoon for a snack. I have no idea why, but I really like that Sysco peanut butter!

Suzy

Federal Judge Halts Sysco-US Foods Merger

http://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-jud ... 1435093324

I work for a large food distributor that shall remain nameless, and back in my warehouse days it always cracked me up that places proudly advertised they serve freshly baked cookies, muffins, pies, bread, rolls, etc, when I know full well that they bought them frozen from us. Yeah, technically they DO “bake” them in house, but . . .

Probably the scariest thing I’ve seen was frozen sushi rolls in thaw-to-serve bite size pieces. Eesh

Dave148 wrote:

Federal Judge Halts Sysco-US Foods Merger

http://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-jud ... 1435093324

I guess I'm happy the merger was blocked. Sysco is the monolith, US Foods is the little brother that could never do it quite like Sysco. The original premise for the merger, according to Sysco, was that "...combining the operations of the country’s two largest businesses of this kind will not hamper competition and will, in fact, lead to lower prices for foodservice operators."

Bullroar, I say. A monopoly--which Sysco pretty much has already in the foodservice arena--leads to jobs being combined and more 'value-added' fees to be introduced. Its all about control.

US Foods will need to be restructured & revamped if they plan to keep a hold on their share of the market. And the other guys? Yeah, there could be more opportunity but they will be going after US Foods' business, not Sysco's. They will go on being the monolith.