Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas
Scott Monell, Executive Chef

Scott Monell, Executive Chef, holds a deep appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes, quality-wise, with Avendra. He has seen the value of the Avendra Quality Assurance (QA) specialists working with vendors to make sure products and services are always up to standard.  “By the time a product is delivered,” says Chef Scott, “it has gone through so many inspections – in the field, at the plant, at the distributors – that all you have to do is inspect it on-site.”

The Value of Experience
Avendra’s QA expertise came in handy and reaped nice rewards recently for the 550-room Fairmont Hotel in downtown Dallas.

A well-known client – which holds itself to extremely high standards in terms of food safety – had booked the hotel for a conference. As part of the reservation, the planners stipulated that the Fairmont Hotel have a formal Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, or HACCP, program in place. 

With only six weeks to go, Chef Scott and staff were a bit concerned. “We knew we did a good job with food sanitation and safety,” he recalls. “But we didn’t know how to design and implement a documented program that would meet HACCP guidelines.”

Chef Scott spoke with one of his primary distributors, who recommended that he give Avendra’s QA team a call to see if they could help out on the issue.  Avendra’s QA group was both knowledgeable about the HACCP program and able to help analyze, document and setup the program.

Things began happening quickly. Dan Ivory, an Avendra QA manager, showed up at the Fairmont with all the required paperwork to establish a HACCP program. Working with the Fairmont staff, he reviewed the kitchen facilities and diagramed the flow of food from delivery, all the way though the kitchen, to the table.

Critical points where potential hazards could be controlled or eliminated were identified. In addition to documenting the procedure, Avendra helped implement a record-keeping system to comply with HACCP guidelines. Then, two weeks before the conference, Avendra’s QA team came back to check on progress.

What were the results? According to Chef Scott, the conference went off “without a hitch, and the client was very impressed with the hotel’s food safety program.”   In addition, the procedures that were designed and implemented for the client meeting are still in place now and are part of the daily food management process at the hotel.

For Chef Scott, the value of Avendra comes not only from volume-based economy in purchasing, but from Avendra’s in-depth expertise on the industry and ability to provide additional services to help augment his business.   Again, solid performance builds confidence. “In the past, I’d seen many examples of Avendra’s economic buying power,” says Chef Scott.  “We recently learned through our experience with setting up the HACCP program that Avendra also has the ability to leverage its expertise in purchasing to provide additional consulting advice and services that can really make a difference to my business.”