Summit Review
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NEWS
"Chef" Magazine and other recent media coverage
SUMMIT 2002
SPONSOR FEATURES
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES :
Session Audio Tapes from 2002 Summit now available
Personal Chef Productivity Software
The American Personal Chef Association made another landmark move in the development of the Personal Chef industry with the creation of the Best Practices groups at the Orlando Summit.
These groups, comprised of all attendees, were special-interest breakout discussions on four timely topics affecting Personal Chefs everywhere:
By anyone's measure these groups were tremendously successful, once again showing that when you have a group of people with a common interest, professional attitude and a desire to make a difference you can achieve almost anything! Way to go APCA chefs!
Here are some highlights from the groups discussions.
One of the largest groups, the Code of Ethics discussion generally agreed that there is a need for an industry-wide code accessible to all Personal Chefs. This code would lay the groundwork for how each and every Personal Chef who voluntarily complies with the code would conduct his or her business.
Many specific ideas were generated as to what should be in this code and, perhaps more importantly, the types of things which should specifically be omitted. Preliminary suggestions were made as to how the Personal Chef Code of Ethics should be rolled out and how it would be administrated on an ongoing basis.
The group's consensus was that a Personal Chef Code of Ethics committee should be struck, comprised of working Personal Chefs, do develop a set of standards for consideration by the Personal Chefs at large. Upon return from Orlando, the call went out and a number of Personal Chefs have now committed to work on this program. The Personal Chef Code of Ethics committee is now hard at work in the initial phases of developing this program.
For any questions regarding the Code of Ethics, please email the committee chair, Chef Brian Boots.
There's no doubt that the Personal Chef industry is still out on the frontier of the culinary world. Part of that frontier is the continuing change that we see in food regulations with respect to the Personal Chef industry.
The Sanitation and Food Safety group tackled this tough topic with enthusiasm, discussing issues of safe food handling, HACCP, transportation & storage and more.
Again, many topic-specific suggestions were put forward and the group as a whole began developing great ideas. Once again, the general consensus was for the striking of a committee for the ongoing development and deployment of Sanitation and Safe Food Handling standards.
Volunteers for the Sanitation and Food Safety Committee, which will officially start in January 2003, are currently being recruited and we invite all APCA members with a solid background in Food Safety to email the committee chair, Meredith Eriksen.
This groups had a two-fold purpose; provide some additional information about the forthcoming ACF Personal Chef certification levels and discuss other needs regarding certification.
The whole ACF program will be unveiled in January 2003, but some highlights of it include specific points levels earned from general and industry-specific education as well as extensive experience operating a Personal Chef service. These two new certifications are generally considered equivalent to Chef de Cuisine and Executive Chef.
The group discussed the forthcoming standards and proposed the development of a third, more entry-level, certification more on par with a certified Sous Chef. This program will more fully explored and developed early in 2003.
With the constant breaking of new ground that the Personal Chef industry does, being able to communicate clearly, to the public and to each other, can be a tough challenge when so many new terminologies are created.
The focus of the Standardized Terminology group was the discussion of the need for standardized terminologies that effectively describe our industry and services.
Certainly not designed to straightjacket anyone, the focus here is to provide a "styleguide" of terms that provides better reference to what we do while avoiding the jargon that tends to creep into any new industry.
Before year-end we will be working to create this repository for Personal Chefs' use. Keep an eye on this newsletter for future developments.