Skip navigation
In The Kitchen with Bret Thorn
rob-morasco-podcast.jpg
Senior director of culinary development and performance for Sodexo in the United States, Rob Morasco describes how he caters to over 13,000 foodservice locations.

Sodexo research & development chef Rob Morasco feeds people from a social distance

The corporate chef of the onsite giant shares insights into how consumer tastes are changing, and also how they’re staying the same

Listen to this podcast on SpotifyApple Podcasts or SoundCloud.

As senior director of culinary development and performance for Sodexo in the United States, Rob Morasco is in charge of creating the food for more than 13,000 foodservice locations in corporate cafeterias, hospitals, senior living facilities, high schools, universities, airline lounges, oil platforms and more.

Obviously, what his clients want, what their customers want, and how Morasco goes about developing it have all changed dramatically since the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Obviously there’s more takeout and delivery, and that means that Morasco, to fulfill Sodexo’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint, has to be conscientious about all the packaging he has to go through now.

He also has to find ways to get everyone to taste new menu items while socially distancing, as well as to adjust to the changing tastes of his diners.

Morasco said that while some consumers continue to focus on items that are better for themselves and better for the planet, they’re also helping themselves to plenty of comfort food, because they need it these days. He’s found that that’s true with people from every generation. Senior living facilities are asking for grain bowls and bao buns, and college students are eating chicken parm heroes.

In this edition of In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, we discuss how Morasco and the people he’s feeding have adjusted to the changing times.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

Hide comments

Comments

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <blockquote> <br> <p>

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Publish