Belgian catering focuses on more experience

Experience and presentation aren’t just becoming more important in supermarkets, more attention is also given to these factors by catering. To give chefs and staff as much time as possible to work on presentation, Nomad was founded last year. The Belgian company focuses on the “cold side of the kitchen,” Christophe de Mey describes their activities.

Cutting, peeling and cleaning are the three main activities of Food Nomad. “We try to take care of the entire cold side of things in kitchens,” Christophe says. “We’re an outsourcer of the fruit and vegetable processing in catering kitchens.” The company was founded in September last year. Besides Christophe himself, Tom Claessens of Groothandel Claessens also participates in the company. Restaurants serve vegetables cut by Nomad from the Flemish coast to Brussels. The entire Flanders region is covered through the logistical network of Belgian Fresh Food. “If customers place an order at midnight it’s delivered the next morning.”

Although the production hall features cleaning and cutting machines, the company also employs 12 people to peel products. “We do all of the difficult manual work as well, such as Jerusalem artichokes and scorzonera,” Christophe says. The company made a conscious decision to stay away from bulk products such as grated carrots. “We do cut carrots julienne, but we make a tricolour mix with purple, orange and yellow carrot,” Christophe continues. He mentions some other products in their range that allow them to be distinctive: “A julienne of leek or celery, a brunoise of bell pepper and manually peeled shallots, there’s no product we won’t do. We do more than just large volumes.”

“We focus on the products nobody peels or cleans.” One example of this is the brunoise of peeled bell pepper. “I think this is a unique product. We manually peel the bell pepper, and then we cut them into squares. We also peel potatoes chateaus and potatoes in mushroom shapes, for example. This are odd shapes, so we have to manually cut them.” The fresh potato squares are also manually peeled. “Quality still remains better if the work’s done manually, rather than by machine. We have a cutting machine, but we use it more for the larger products. We’ll always do semi-automatic work, at most.”

Besides cutting vegetables, the company also ferments vegetables. “We make our own kimchi, sauerkraut and pickles. We do all of this based on lacto-fermentation. Pre-cooking is also becoming more popular.” Asparagus, scorzonera or miniature chicory — “we don’t do regular chicory, we leave that to the big boys” — are seasoned and vacuum cooked. “Demand for pre-cooked, pickled or fermented vegetables continues to rise,” Christophe says.

“We always try to have as short a supply chain as possible. If we can buy locally, we will.” Purchasing is also done via Belgian Fresh Fruit at, among others, the Mechelse Veilingen. “Quality is the most important thing to us, and that’s why we have short best-before dates as well.” Most companies have best-before dates of seven days. Food Nomad has chosen five days. “That’s a disadvantage to us, because we’ll always work in small volumes because of this, but quality is more important.”

“When quality of import products is better, we’ll have to look further away,” Christophe explains. This is the case for young lettuce varieties, for example, for which Food Nomad has its own production location in Italy. “These lettuce varieties have to be grown in the open air, so we go to Italy for them.” Various varieties of lettuce are grown on 2.5 hectares, including Red chard and Lollo Rosso. “We supply all young lettuce varieties cleaned and packed.”

Because of this, the focus is on local and organic product, and Food Nomad works with small growers. That is tricky, particularly in the cold weeks late in February. “We’re going to continue expanding,” Christophe says. “A restaurant along the Flemish coast wants only organic products, and if no organic products are available, they choose very local product. We then take over the contacts with the growers, and cut tailor-made products for them.”

From the level of better brasseries to the best restaurants, more attention is paid to presentation, experience and creative expression of the kitchen staff everywhere. “Restaurant owners choose buying cut vegetables more often, to save time in kitchens that can then be used to improve the experience on the plates. That is partly inspired by the trend of placing photos of meals on social media such as Instagram. Catering is clearly choosing more experience and colour on plates.”

Restaurant owners also consider the cost aspect. “They often don’t know the hourly wages of kitchen staff, and they have no idea what ups and downs mean to the staff, and how much stress this results in if something additional has to be peeled. They often don’t know how much is lost in kitchens either, when products have to be peeled and cut. Our prices are higher when purchasing, but they’ll always be lower compared to when kitchen staff has to do the work themselves, because we can buy on a larger scale and work more productively.”

In the past winter months, Christophe saw a number of products becoming more popular on menus. “It wasn’t that popular yet in Belgium, but finely cut kale is rising very quickly. Scorzonera also had a good winter season.” A third product is coleslaw, albeit with a new twist for which the traditional white cabbage is supplemented with Chinese and oxheart cabbages.

Christophe gradually sees menus changing from wintery fare to spring and summery fare. Because of this, the assortment is changing, as well as Food Nomad’s methods. The positions of the packing machines and cutting tables have to be adjusted somewhat in order to process the vegetables for the summer menus. “Much time and attention is spent on toppings,” Christophe says about a trend in orders. “Demand for fine herbs is increasing, such as fine-cut spring onions, thyme or parsley.” Another product that will often be served by catering is herb salad. “It looks like large varieties of lettuce are a thing of the past. For instance, red mizuna, chervil and red onion rings are in demand now. It has to be finer, more flavourful and fresher,” Christophe sums up. “Toppings are important for that as well.”

More information:
Food Nomad
Christophe de Mey