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Beyond the Line is a new series focusing on jobs for chefs beyond the restaurant kitchen. To start, we have been speaking to former students of the Basque Culinary Center - a gastronomy university in San Sebastian, Spain - who have all decided to pursue culinary careers outside of restaurants.
Our latest interviewee is Carlos Osorio, from Granada, also in Spain. He is the founder and director of CUMA, a culinary consultancy that utilises the data of businesses to enhance their quality and profitability. He specialised in innovation, business and entrepreneurship for his degree at the BCC.
Carlos Osorio
Tell us about your experience of studying at the BCC.
During four years at the BCC we got a 360-degree view of the hotel and catering industry. This included product techniques, gastronomy, history, marketing, business management, the food industry – a vast number of subjects that provide a complete understanding of gastronomy and the restaurant business. For me, the experience was a great opportunity to become a professional in the restaurant business, in all the positions this industry comprises.
What’s the greatest tip or lesson you took from your time there?
The subject I liked the most, from the point of view of the activity I am performing now, was innovation. We had to work on a business plan from scratch for a business model that was not on the market and set it up. For me, this was a great opportunity, in fact, it was the first step to the position I'm working on right now as director of CUMA Culinary, which is a culinary consultancy.
Tell us about CUMA.
I created CUMA because I saw that enterprises needed to grow and be more competitive. These enterprises are always looking to enhance new processes and tools. In organised catering it is very important to have visibility and control over all the areas that the business comprises. Right now there is not a completely qualified professional figure to control all those business areas. I created CUMA because I saw an opportunity in the market. I used a strategy called ‘culinary management’ to understand the data from each type of business to boost their profitability and quality.
The clients we work for are those who work with innovation. They are brands that need to develop new products or business models inside organised catering, who need a qualified professional figure that understands the gastronomy and business structure of their companies. This business model is based on taking a product that is profitable, scalable and successful, and replicating it. CUMA enters the innovation process to develop new recipes, standardise the processes, and analyse the costs and the results, so that apart from [the business] being profitable, it is attractive and viable. This means that it is scalable and replicable to different locations. From there, CUMA enters the value chain, from an innovation perspective, where we do a ‘beefing’, giving us a context of the situation, of the company we are working for, its market positioning, competitors or the objectives they want to reach. Then we use a funnel to narrow these characteristics and get a gastronomic offer that solves the problems of that enterprise. This process will be standardised with some usage protocols and training that will be based on culinary management.
What is it like to work on the other side – with chefs and restaurants, as opposed to being part of a restaurant team?
For me, it is a very rewarding experience, as being on the other side allows you to see the face of the customer and the faces of the people hiring you. When you work in a kitchen, what is rewarding is to know that you are creating the dish, because it is what reaches the customer. But when you are outside, you have that 360-degree view I mentioned before – you are also seeing the dishes, the customers, the managers and the clients. What is most rewarding to us is to know that what we do is being used in several places. What is being eaten in Seville or in Madrid can also be eaten in London, Berlin, Paris or Rome. That capacity to replicate those things efficiently, but to also make them attractive to customers is the most rewarding thing to me, to provide all our knowledge – because we have been chefs and we are chefs – to that area of management and logistics, business expansion and marketing.
Do chefs make good entrepreneurs?
Chefs are the best entrepreneurs. A chef is a person who knows the business model from the inside. They are the ones who have the know-how of every restaurant. Without the chef, there is no restaurant. They have this perfection mentality.
What kind of skills do chefs need today beyond the kitchen, in your opinion?
They have to be open-minded and get into management. Many of the most successful chefs have realised that they have to juggle the time they spend in the kitchen with management, because they have to coexist.
How do you see the role of the chef changing in the future?
The role of chefs in the future will be very important, not only because, more and more, they are media figures, they have become celebrities, popular people, but also because they are making decisions that affect everybody, not only on how we eat, but also on the future of food. They have to respond to the challenges the world and the sector is facing, for example, sustainability. They have to understand all this and I think that, thanks to education and training, the decisions we take from our position can be valid and good for everybody.
What are the best and worst things about your job?
The worst part of our job is to constantly have to adapt to new tools, you cannot stop your training, because if you do, you won't know the latest trends, where the innovation is, and you are lost. We are tied to innovation. That requires constant sacrifice, thinking and staying updated. But it is also a positive part for me. We are always developing ourselves, and training and learning. At CUMA, our satisfaction is linked to adaptability to the changes in the world or the ones our clients require, such as the ones we have suffered with the pandemic and the adaptability we have developed, for example through the digital transformation of organised catering. All this is the most difficult but also the most positive. So it is kind of a ying and a yang.
How has the pandemic affected your daily work and what would you say to chefs who are worried about a lack of kitchen jobs due to it?
I would say that adaptability is essential to survive. CUMA has had to adapt. We have updated our protocols. If I had to say something to the chefs, it would be to look for opportunities in the weaknesses. Whenever there is a negative situation, there is always an opportunity or positive aspect. Whenever this ends, hopefully soon, we will analyse the trajectory through these months and see where we have evolved, and I think chefs will have to do the same. It is an opportunity to update in digital transformation, protocols, R&D, innovation, anything they want. Training has a special role in times of crisis. I would tell them to keep pushing. When all this ends, there will be a time to show everything they have learned. There will be a revolution in our sector, and this is the opportunity to catch up. I want to give a message of hope.
