Executive, Sous Chefs Participate in USMEF Culinary Education Program in Indonesia

Training programs for U.S. beef and pork help build a network of culinary advocates among executive and sous chefs from upscale restaurants in Jakarta.

USMEF brought a group of 25 executive and sous chefs together for an educational seminar in Jakarta, Indonesia, with one day devoted to U.S. beef and the second day to U.S. pork. The chefs, from top restaurants in the city, were customers of Indonesian importer PT Indoguna Utama. Also participating were the importer's executive chef and three culinary influencers.

USMEF began each day's session with an industry overview on U.S. production standards and explanations about the quality attributes of U.S. red meat. Two Jakarta-based executive chefs conducted the training sessions, which included cutting demonstrations on selected U.S. beef and pork items, along with preparation and cooking of unique recipes. On day one, Chef Vindex Tengker featured Prime grade cuts of bone-in short rib, short loin and chuck clod. Day two saw Chef Stefu Santoso feature four dishes with U.S. pork spareribs, skinless pork belly and CT butt. Each U.S. beef and pork dish was sampled during training and featured at lunches on both days.

USMEF coordinated with the importer on which U.S. cuts to feature and with the two chefs on dishes that offered the strongest potential for adoption and success on upscale menus in Jakarta.

"Fine dining establishments are rapidly expanding in the region," says Indonesia Representative Arrofi (Rofi) Satrio Alam. "This gives us opportunities to introduce new ideas to chefs on how to include more U.S. beef and pork dishes on their menus."

In addition to developing a network of culinary advocates for U.S. beef and pork in upscale restaurants, program objectives include the development of recipes and digital assets to support future promotional efforts for participating restaurants. The three culinary influencers (with 785,000 followers) helped spread the word about U.S. beef and pork as more than 80,000 views were generated from nine video reels.

"Executive and sous chefs generally have a good understanding about middle meat cuts of U.S. beef. But they know little about the quality attributes of alternative cuts, especially Prime grade. Awareness is also low of U.S. pork's quality attributes. For many, the seminar was an introduction to how U.S. pork can be an exceptional option for fine-dining menus," says Rofi.

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The training event was made possible with support from the Beef Checkoff Program, Indiana Soybean Alliance and USDA.