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Corporate "teambuilding" ideas

post #1 of 4
2/17/05 at 1:00pm
Thread Starter 
I provide catering/foodservice for a small conference/convention facility. The director of sales wants to start selling corporate "teambuilding" packages, which would include some sort of kitchen exercise, such as a chili cook-off. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm hoping for some ideas of other types of projects/foods to have the teams prepare, as well as organizational tips, pitfalls, etc. Thanks!
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post #2 of 4
2/21/05 at 1:10pm

Random Thoughts

I don't have any experience with this type of theme building, but your question got me thinking. Wouldn't a chilli cook off involve an awful lot of sitting around? I know my favorite chilli recipe is up to 30 minutes of prep followed by 2 to 4 hours of simmer and occasionally stir.
The 'Food Rave' scene in Hitch got me thinking though. For those that haven't seen the scene, there are around 8 tables of four people each with really nice cuts of fish on them. Each table is going to cook something and a server brings some sort of seafood appetizer served in endive leaves around. Sashimi grade seafood is great for the versitality and hygene involved. Another positive is that most people can't just pick it up at the grocery store. Of course, expense is the down side.
Another option would be to have two teams compete in an iron chef style competition. Assign a chef to each team. They would take part in discussions with each team about what recipes to prepare. Then you would probably need to provide each team with detailed recipes. The chef would rotate between the groups on their team *****strating techniques as appropriate and fixing mistakes as they happen.
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post #3 of 4
2/23/05 at 4:27pm

an idea

I have been working for hotels now for a couple of years now. Last year the copration decided to have like a food and wine weekend at my hotel. They wanted to have something where the people go to work with the cooks. I am not sure how many employees you have or how may people you cater for but as for an exersize you could do like a make your own meal thing. Where they break the group into teams and every group makes one part of there own meal. Like if you were doing a buffet you could have one group work on one entree and one on another one on salads on on desserts. I don't know if you can use it but I think it's kind of a neat idea.

Nikki
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post #4 of 4
2/24/05 at 5:25am

put a meal together

I have a Culinary Studio where I teach small classes. One of my favorite classes is the teambuilding class where everyone has to cook say a 4 or 5 course meal and then sit down and eat together. It goes like this: Have 4 stations prepped with each course's ingredients (already premeasured). Each person starts at a station, (may need groups of 2 or 3 depending on the size of the whole group) reads the recipe and begins. After 10-15 minutes, the timer goes off and the group rotates to the next station. The new person/group must pick up where the other left off and finish the course. You can rotate again depending on the menu and time of preparation. So choose recipes that work. We plate the dishes and sit down to eat together while everyone laughs about what they did in the kitchen.

Or: Just have them make the 4/5 course meal without the rotation bit.
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