Gather ’round, boys and girls. Today we’re going to learn about a not-so-novel French phrase.
But first, a little background. Once of the more interesting aspects of our industry is moving from one job to another. This began for me when I was a pimply-faced courtesy clerk, sacking groceries, retrieving shopping carts and taking care of all those wet cleanups in Aisle 10. Every day offered something new.
From there I moved to the produce aisle, where one level accomplished led to another and another, and from one job to the next, underneath the same produce-related umbrella. The location transfers and positions grew over the years — along with increased responsibilities — so much so that after a couple of decades in retail produce seeing just about everything, I thought I knew something about the business.
Boy, was I wrong. That’s what I get for thinking.
That’s the point when I started working on the foodservice side of produce. As some of my fellow buyers have pointed out, “Foodservice is a whole different animal.” After exposure to all the multiple sizes, grades, cuts, labels, product lines and wildly varying specs and customer base, I concurred. A different animal indeed.
One lesson learned along the journey was provided a lot closer to home, however. I pointed out to my chef-daughter one day that television celebrity Rachael Ray’s 30-minute meal show seemed somewhat contrived.
“Thirty minutes to cook a cool meal, all right,” I said. “Why, just look — she has everything already cut up and ready to go. That part alone takes more than the 30 minutes that follows!”
“Dad,” my daughter said. “That’s called mise en place. It’s normal and, in fact, a vital part of culinary work. It’s French: Everything is in place.”
Related: More insight from Armand Lobato
According to Merriam Webster, mise en place (pronounced mee-zahn-plas) is the culinary process in which ingredients are chopped, prepared and organized (as in a restaurant kitchen) before cooking. It might be commonplace and an early lesson given for the culinary types, but for this retail-based produce scribe, it was enlightening. In fact, very cool.
In the retail produce world, we’re all about mise en place.
A good retail produce operation works best when everything is carefully planned out, with as much prepared ahead of time as possible. For example, writing an accurate labor schedule that matches anticipated load deliveries and includes enough hours for prep work for a given shift or day; adjusted heavier or lighter for upcoming business.
A productive day in retail results when a produce manager devotes enough time and thought in writing a “Goldilocks” order — the right balance of product that accurately meets the needs of a day. Not too much, not too little, but just right.
Retail mise en place is also all about coordination of everything: having the right product, enough labor and having trained clerks all in the right place, at the right time, to generate maximum sales, which reaps optimum gross profits while minimizing shrink.
Mise en place is about how a produce manager manages his or her stand. It’s setting up and maintaining an organized sign kit. It’s making a merchandising plan for the week ahead and sticking to the plan. It’s about outlining and maintaining strict sanitation standards and holding every person on every shift accountable for daily expectations.
From faithfully rotating displays to daily air-stacking the bananas, there are 101 to-do tasks every day; if you aren’t prepared, it’s easy to lose track of doing things right and too easy to lose control.
The produce aisle absolutely subscribes to mise en place — or should. I just didn’t realize it had such an elegant term.
Armand Lobato works for the Idaho Potato Commission. His 40 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions.