Take it or leave it

[garball]

Again, standing over my small expanse of high density polyethylene, I pondered another precarious predicament for the professional.

You are running low on a menu item. The delivery comes in. The product sucks. No time to get anymore.

Send it back and 86 the menu item, or rewrite menus for the night?


Accept the product unwillingly and make due?



I thought the answer was pretty obvious. I have been proven wrong.

[SmokeyJoe]

If its something where the finished product is going to insult there AND my intelligence than im sending it back. If its just a matter of specs, im going with it, gonna make it work. But if were talking sucks sucks sucks, no way of getting around it, ill have to sub something else.

[MStorandelli]

If the product sucks, it goes. It goes back, it goes on the compost pile, it goes in the dog scrap bucket, but it DOESN'T go in a dish or on a plate if it's my call. I love to eat. I love to cook. I love to eat what I cook and I wouldn't cook something I wouldn't want to eat.
It's been my experience that if you consistently send back unacceptable products, your supplier will get it and stop sending you sucky stuff. I use a combination of guilt tripping when I get junk and heaps of slobbering praise when I do get something nice.

[chefjohn1955]

I have ONE really good supplier in this area,
Example I had to do a special where I needed (wanted) heirloom tomatoes. They ordered them in. ON day that I was to pick them up (small order)
They called saying I am sorry we can't sell them to you.... Why?
Because we don't like how they are after shipping ...
Me freaking out
They said OK come over and look at them.
True couple had gotten bruised from the road.
I am desperately trying to re think my menu
They said we can't sell them to you but you can have them.... free.
I was able to use the rest (the bruised ones I could trim up).
Guess who I use exclusively for that kind of stuff (all they carry).

[SmokeyJoe]

Everytime I get something in(usually produce) where it doesnt fit my specs I find myself wishing I could have been there to pick out EXACTLY what I wanted. Any of you guys and girls shop for produce in person? How do you fit it into your schedule. I wish I could hand pick my stuff.
See , but I wont lie and say I cant be more flexible thana lot of you guys. I have a bit of a captive audience and so no one here is gonna refuse to return. case in point...
Last week we had osso bucco on the menu, now the exec chef next door orders us foods for the entire property so I dont know if it was a miss pick a missorder or just some cruel joke but they sent me these tiny little peices maybe at most 2 inches in diameter. See now you probably woulda had to send those back, I was able to go with them (they looked like ox tails) cooked them up tuscan style with some black eye peas and served them up. I know the residents enjoyed them, even if there was no "osso bucco" to speak of.
MS, and other chefs like that, I admire that quality to just stop the whole operation and insist on perfection. Thats the quality Im tryin to adapt to. I think they call it [email]b@lls.[/email] Ive gotten better from the first days I started and thought kindness was a good philosophy. Ive since learned that If I didnt all but insist it wasnt gonna get done at least not right.

[sunny_mcd]

I thought the answer was pretty obvious. I have been proven wrong.

Care to elaborate on this, garball? I'm intrigued...

[Derek Cooks]

I think it depends on the type of house you run, your customer's expectations, etc. And how much time you have to dick with it in terms of 1) dealing with the purveyor, 2) picking through the crap to get to the good stuff, 3) time to service to prep the item or create something "special".

As a purveyor myself, I urge you NOT to accept crap. Either reject it at the dock, or call me (your purveyor) and tell them it's crap and either they get you some good stuff NOW, or you are going to use what you can and you expect credit for the crap. That's what I urge my customers to do. Let me fix it if I can. If I can't, well, you shouldn't have to pay for it.

Lastly, as soon as you start accepting crap, surprise!, you start getting more and more crap. Amazes me the operations that don't check their stuff in on arrival. That's how less-quality-conscious purveyors know where to dump the crap...

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, if all you have is crap, but that wedding party of 200 specifically ordered the dish you need the crap for, and they're coming in 2 hours, you gotta figure out a way to make the crap work, eh Garball?

[garball]

First, I would do my best to have any banquet food at least the day before so I don't run into that problem, although I have threatened to kick another chef's ass for holding up the meat truck the day of a 300 person prime rib plated.

Let's leave bruised produce out of the equation and talk about expired proteins. Now we get into the realm of not only having a lower quality product, but a potentially hazardous product............

[Silverfox]

...Let's leave bruised produce out of the equation and talk about expired proteins. Now we get into the realm of not only having a lower quality product, but a potentially hazardous product............

IMHO, that's more of a "no brainer", do the "risk/return" and your answer is clear. One case of "food related illness" and your career faces a severe roadblock, especially if the cause can be traced to knowingly using a suspect product.

PHF (or PHP) is totally different from simply not meeting your (or your establishment's) standards.

I'd probably go further, once I rescued the event, and make sure the purveyor understood the problem and, depending on the response, may go further and discuss the matter with the appropriate health authorities.

Poor quality is one thing, PHF is definitely a whole different situation!

[garball]

IMHO, that's more of a "no brainer", do the "risk/return" and your answer is clear. One case of "food related illness" and your career faces a severe roadblock, especially if the cause can be traced to knowingly using a suspect product.

I thought the answer was pretty obvious. I have been proven wrong.

[Derek Cooks]

Expired proteins? Refused at the dock. Got past the dock? Immediate call to purveyor to come pick this bleeding crap up before I put it in the bin - before the health inspector shows up.

Every box of every product shipped out MUST have the pick and delivery date on it (the pick-ticket tag that the supplier puts on it when they pull it off the shelf and put it on the truck to you.) If they are shipping you dead crap, wellllll, it's time for stern talking to....

[bohica]

I guess I wanna throw a wrench in the equation here and ask......

"Why aren't the 'pickers' at the purveyor warehouses more educated about what products are and what expectations are necessary for them to continue to provide quality product to each and every customer".

Why is it that the purveyor would send out inferior product to begin with?

I understand that in shipping things happen, but what I don't ever understand is why a questionable product is even packed on the truck to begin with.

[SmokeyJoe]

I enjoy most when the complete wrong item shows up with the pick sticker for the item I had ordered, In other words the guys at the ware house must decide they dont feel like fetching something?and just throw the sticker on the first availiable item wich I then have to send back to retreive the correct product. Hours of fun for seconds of stupidity.

[Derek Cooks]

It would be nice to think that the pickers would/could do this...but, reality is:

We're talking 20 - 30 guys rolling around several-hundred-thousand-square-foot warehouses and "walk-ins" on electric pallet jacks, picking at least 60,000 cases to load almost 70 trucks. They start this at about 6:pm and have to have it done by 3:am, or sooner, so the trucks can roll...Our warehouse boasts a 99.96% accuracy in picking. So on any given day something like 24 products are mispicked.

Not bad out of 60k, but bad if YOU get one, or three, on the same load.

But the bigger point here is, these guys don't have time to read every label on every case. They go to the slot shown on the pick-ticket, pull the case(s) needed, put 'em on the pallet and GO to the next slot, etc.

it all depends on slotting - having the right product in the right slot in the right aisle in the right warehouse. And in the picker getting to the right slot - not the one next door, but THE one he needs to be at. Every once in a while the wrong product ends up in the wrong slot, so EVERY case pulled out of that slot is wrong. Sometimes a returned case gets stuck in the wrong slot.

As to dead proteins - that's bad management/inventory control. Or at some purveyors I know, just their way of avoiding losses. Ship it and see if they catch it.

My particular warehouse management and support people are awesome in this regard. Questionable products never go out the door. We're working toward a 99.99% accuracy in slotting, picking and delivery. I have great confidence in the products we ship.

But things go wrong. And my company allows, no, encourages me, to make it right - however that may be. And yes, I've had customers receive a case of BBQ sauce with a 40% Heavy Cream pick-sticker on it. Go figure out how THAT happened!?!?!

It's a huge undertaking really, getting just the right product to just the right resto in just the right condition.

[Fincher]

no excuses.... period! My customers won't except them so why should I??? I guess because I have no other choice

I ordered red chile flakes and got chili powder! I ordered tomatillos 6 weeks ago for next day delivery and they finally show up out of the blue when I had forgotten about them and they were rotten. My phsyaliis were moldy and so were my strawberries.

but I do get door delievery from local farmers and they always have perfect products.