As you may know, Pace Reps is a proud representative of RATIONAL combi ovens. We recognize their place as the industry leader and original inventor of the combi oven category, and we enjoy showing off these units to operators.

A few weeks ago, we did just that. We took one of our RATIONAL SelfCookingCenters up to Tennessee, where Chef Rick Campbell demonstrated the unit's capabilities to eight different school districts. We were honored to host directors from several school systems in the middle Tennessee area.

What did they learn? Grilled cheese.

As part of the demonstration, Chef Campbell cooked grilled cheese sandwiches in the RATIONAL SelfCookingCenter. The result was the perfect combination of cheese cooked to the precise temperature required for a memorable, silky texture. The bread, on the other hand, had been simultaneously toasted to just the right point where it contrasted the texture of the cheese to perfection. The result amazed our Tennessee school nutrition guests.

In schools, though, kids eat over the course of several lunch periods. So what happens if too many grilled cheese sandwiches are made for fourth period, and 25 or so are left over for fifth period?

Again, the RATIONAL SelfCooking Center showed that it’s possible to preserve food quality -- to revive it, actually -- eliminating the need to throw 25 sandwiches in the trash.

Using the SelfCookingCenter, Chef Campbell rethermalized several grilled cheese sandwiches that had been previously prepared and were sitting around for several minutes after their initial preparation. The result was a grilled cheese sandwich that was just as good the second time it came out of the combi as it was the first, showing that it's ever-so-easy to preserve high quality from one lunch period to the next.

THE BIG CHEESE: WHAT YOU SHOULD TAKE AWAY FROM THIS STORY

Several decades ago there was an economist, professor at Harvard Business School, and editor of the Harvard Business Review named Theodore Levitt. Amongst other things, Levitt is famous for providing an important quote that still resonates through sales and marketing classes today:

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

Essentially, school directors in Tennessee don’t want a shiny new piece of cooking equipment. They want the ability to cook foods their students will love -- like the perfect grilled cheese. They also want to eliminate food waste and to rethermalize foods without losing quality. And in the end, they want to increase participation day-in, day-out.

As much as we love RATIONAL because we know how reliable they are, how much they can help school nutrition directors in their goals to provide great service, we also know the combi oven isn’t the purpose. The students are.

We’d be happy to discuss some of our ideas with you as to how you can better prepare your school cafeteria with equipment, supplies, and systems that will make your operation more efficient and reliable.

Whether you just want to taste the perfect grilled cheese from a RATIONAL SelfCookingCenter or you’d like to go into more depth on your challenges as a whole, we invite you to schedule a free school nutrition assessment with one of our experts.