Languedoc-Roussillon in New York City!

June 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Sud de France Développement, a semi public company working for the region of Languedoc-Roussillon in the south of France, has been hosting a festival in New York City since June 9th and will be ending next week on June 30th. The goal of Sud de France Développment is to support regional businesses in terms of export whilst promoting the Sud de France brand. By strengthening sales and promotional approaches they will be able to develop activities both on national and international markets.

The festival has brought New Yorkers the opportunity to experience the culture of Languedoc-Rousillon through participating in different events such as dinners, wine tastings, cruises, and concerts. One of the events that took place in the past couple weeks was a wine crawl atop a double decker bus! The bus had live music and drove around making stops at different French brasseries and bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

To read about the past events and sign up for future ones click here

 

Filed Under: Events, Local Market Buzz Tagged With: , ,

Finding New Solutions for Growing Income Inequality

June 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Last week during the Aspen Food & Wine Festival, the American Express Trade program held a panel discussion for food service operators on how to find solutions for the income inequality between front-of-house and back-of-house workers. The panel members included Chef Jonathan Waxman of Barbuto in New York, Barbara Lynch of Barbara Lynch Gruppo in Boston, chef and owner of Coqueta in San Francisco, Michael Chiarello, and chief-executive of Union Square Hospitality Group in New York, Danny Meyer. The discussion took place within the context of the vote to increase the minimum wage in Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco.

Kitchen staff are usually on a fixed income (roughly $9 or $10 an hour), while servers benefit from customer tips creating a large income gap between the two. The panelists discussed the idea of replacing tips with a service charge, however both Meyer and Waxman agreed that it is difficult to change customer habits and their expectations of the servers. If this change were made in only a percentage of restaurants it would make it difficult for those with a service charge to attract top serving staff. From the customer’s point of view, it would also be an adjustment because customers like feeling that they have some control of their dining experience by tipping.

Hopefully new solutions will be cerated to solve the issue of compensation inequality amongst staff in restaurants whilst still keeping the customer happy.

To read more about the panel discussion, click here

 

 

Filed Under: Global Market Buzz