Five years ago, when Charlotte, NC-based meeting planner Bonnie Wallsh held a four-day meeting at a conference center near Atlanta, it seemed as though everything was going well. The center's facilities were nice, and the service was friendly. But at each meal, the choice of entrees was the same. And after each meal, the chef served the same dessert.
"The workshop leader told me, 'We can't come back here; the food is really boring,' " Wallsh says. "Particularly with a multiple-day meeting, where the content is intensive and people look forward to the food breaks, you don't want to keep seeing the same choices."
It's a cautionary tale with a moral many conference center food and beverage centers have taken to heart: Variety is more than just the spice of life. It's a key component of a successful food and beverage program. And the success of a food and beverage program, in turn, can make or break a conference center's business. Geoff Lawson, president of the International Association of Conference Centers (IACC), suggests that the intensifying focus on conference center cuisine mirrors larger societal trends. "At least in the U.S., with the health awareness and the workload professionals carry, you have to eat well," he says, and others agree. "Thanks in part to TV's Food Network, consumers are very cognizant of great food products," says Bob Zappatelli, corporate food and beverage director at Woodlands, TX-based Benchmark Hospitality, which operates 23 resorts and conference centers.
As a result, conference center chefs have begun to concentrate their efforts not only on variety, but also on the visual aspects of presentation as well as flexibility in planning. "Planners and attendees equate success with the food program," says Lawson, "Food and beverage is instrumental." And IACC leads the way, with a smorgasbord of FandB seminars in this year's annual meeting, to be crowned by its first annual Copper Skillet Competition, in which finalists from several countries will compete for the title of Best Conference Center Chef of the World. The introduction of this award, Lawson admits, is a "reflection of the importance of food and beverage" today. The competition is designed to "recognize the vital role that food service plays in conference center operations." IACC chapters in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have each selected, by their own methods, one conference center chef to represent his or her home country in the international competition. A panel of judges will consider each chef's preparation of an "Asian Fusion" dish at the event, to select the IACC World Champion Chef.
Mixing It Up
By all accounts, variety ranks as one of the most important facets of conference center food service. "I have definitely noticed a lot more variety," says Victoria Todd-Smith, senior executive chef and food and beverage director at Kent State University's Professional Education and Conference Center in Canton, OH, who attributes the trend to simply answering consumer demand. "If you're going to be there three to four days, you really want the selection to be extensive," says Chris Pentz, president of Levittown, PA-based Pentz Group Communica-tions. "If you're doing an event at a restaurant and your client doesn't like the food, you can leave and tomorrow can be different. But if you're stuck in a location you can't change, you need to make sure the food will be good."
As a result, conference center chefs are going to great lengths to provide as much variety as possible. At the Aberdeen Woods Conference Center in Atlanta, GA, food and beverage director Len Elias serves a different type of themed cuisine every night. On Mondays, he flies in hundreds of live lobsters from Maine, and cooks them right in the dining room, for what he calls his New England Clambake. On Tuesdays, he offers a Bourbon Street-style "low country" buffet, with an array of Southern cuisine, sometimes including alligator meat. "We try to give them something in every meal that they wouldn't necessarily see in their normal day or risk ordering at a restaurant," Elias says. "And we always make sure there's something for everyone." Food is such a critical component of the center's success that Elias is building a new, 7,500-square-foot kitchen that will "allow us to do ten times what we do now."
Getting the Look
Because of the importance of variety as well as the sheer number of people who need to eat in a relatively short period of time, conference center cuisine is largely buffet driven. And buffets, traditionally, haven't lent themselves to particularly dynamic displays. But that, too, is beginning to change. "I think they're realizing that food appeals to the eyes as well as the stomach," Pentz says. Neil Pompan, VP of the JP Morgan Chase Conference Center at Newport in Jersey City, NJ, agrees that conference centers are improving their meal presentation. Increasingly, clients demand more than just a quick plate of food; they expect a warm, inviting atmosphere. "By setting up more stations and better controlling the flow of people, we're treating food as an experience rather than a function of a conference," Pompan says. Kent State's Todd-Smith echoes Pompan: "We put a great deal of emphasis on seasonality and fitting the decorations to whatever occasion we're doing." And meeting planners who have used her center say they have noticed the difference. "The food there is presented with finesse on a long, serpentine table," says Tammy Mossor, a meeting planner with the North Canton Medical Foundation in Canton, OH, who's booked the Kent State conference center several times.
Finally, conference centers have stepped up their food and beverage flexibility in response to planner and attendee demands. "No-fat cooking, fusion cooking, low-carb diets -- these are everywhere," says IACC's Lawson. "We have to respond to that." Wallsh says conference centers she's booked have been "extremely amenable" to the specific dietary needs and wants of her conferees. "Not only can I request that items on the buffet include a list of major ingredients so that attendees with special needs are comfortable," she says, "but it's also more cost-effective than to have to plan individual menus."
Of course, getting great food at conference centers is still hit or miss. Says one meeting planner: "The quality of food and beverage services varies from conference center to conference center, just as it does at hotels." But going forward, the importance of high-quality food will continue to increase. "It's sad to say, but many times the food is what people will remember," says Pentz. "You can have a wonderful meeting, put a lot of time and effort and work into it, but then they will only remember the food. That's the reality."