Food Service Planning and Construction Case Study
Golden State Foods Demonstration Kitchen & Sensory Test Room
Challenge
Golden State Foods (GSF) is a leader in the food services industry best known for logistic support to McDonalds restaurants since the 1950’s, providing the first standardize food delivery across a nationwide chain. As GSF’s client list grew, so did their sophistication. GSF set out to provide menu research, experimentation, formulization, processing and presentation options for their clients. To build on their success in this new sector, they planned to create a game- changing, value-add facility in their City of Industry campus. Plans called for the ability to switch out cooking equipment according to the standard for each fast-food chain they serviced. Additionally, the facility had to seamlessly interweave laboratory, conference, demonstration, development, sensory, cooking, equipment storage, food storage, observation and testing functions.
Solution
Golden State Foods hired Jack Kozakar to plan and execute the project. Jack pulled tougher GSF Chef, Research, Production, Real estate and Management professionals, along with experts from across the county to put together the ideal plan and then interweave it into the selected building. The new Demonstration Kitchen would be attached to the C-Suite so every attention to detail was critical. The structure of the building was modified in order to allow for observation windows and flow from one part of the facility to another.
Results
Cost – Jack brought in the project on-budget and ahead of schedule. Savings were achieved by aggressive bidding and counterbidding, as well as the use of multiple contractors to crunch the schedule.
Schedule – So critical was the timeline to complete the project that GSF chefs and researchers started using it even before it was totally complete. Jack worked out a phased completion schedule that allowed the laboratory, research, cooking, observation and sensory functions to be completed in a series of milestones. .
Quality – The project succeeded in changing Golden State Foods’s business. The stunningly beautiful facility treats executives from every fast-food company to a vision of what is possible from culinary and sensory perspectives.