I have no affiliation with makers of this video. I have, however, long been a detractor of Sysco, the
Wholesale Restaurant Food Distributor, in terms of their impact on food served across the USA. If anything, this video only increases my level of concern.
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Reminds me of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons. Two people having lunch in a restaurant, and one of them says to the other: âI canât afford to buy products made under humane conditions.â
If you are going to lead with chicken nuggets and jalapeno poppers, youâve already lost me. Then they go onto smash burgers. Why would anyone be under the illusion that any of these items are not Sysco?
The video also makes a lot of hash about âruralâ restaurants. It uses Nebraska as a totem, To care, Iâd have to be convinced that they were any good pre-Sysco.
Thank you for posting this!
This was so insightful! There is definitely a rise in concern over the quality of recent restaurant food.
Thanks for posting. Insightful but unfortunately not surprising. Consolidation of the US food system is ripe for disaster.
re: SyscoâŚ.I was once stuck behind a large Sysco truck in a sports car going south on Hwy 1 in Big Sur. Must have been 45 minutes of lumbering traffic torture and then finally it pulled inâŚto Nepenthe, a place with a truly world class view. Made a mental note, never order food there. A drink and the view okay but no food.
That video doesnât show anything new or unique which hasnât been discussed/mentioned before in different media about the few key distributors in the US food service/restaurant system - Sysco (and US Foods as itâs largest competitor) are providing all sorts of ingredients, items etc to all types of restaurants. They have cheap pre-made foods but they also distribute high-end ingredients to many high-end restaurants. Thomas Keller has mentioned several times that he is using Sysco products in his restaurants (e.g. frozen fries at Bouchon) and so it doesnât speak for example against quality food at Nepenthe that a Sysco truck was heading their way. Part of food discussion boards is figuring out which restaurants just use the pre-made stuff and which are cooking quality own dishes even when using Sysco
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I have heard of at least one super high end restaurant (I think it was The French Laundry) admitted using Sysco organic frozen fries. Their argument: it was an excellent product , sustainably farmed in America.
Iâm honestly surprised at most folksâ surprise. A trip through the average Costco or Samâs Club would be a lightbulb moment for most. And if theyâve ever ventured into a US Chef or similar restaurant supply house, it becomes REALLY obvious that many of folksâ favorite dining out treats are pre-packaged, or mixes, or concentrates.
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I make a distinction of types:
- fast food
- diners
- cheap restaurants
there is next to no scratch cooking going on in those places.
perhaps eggs over easy - but an omelette? that comes out of a box & into the microwave . . .
the chicken places donât scratch cook - they only scratch deep fry⌠and Sysco battered fried chicken tastes the same everywhere because . . . it is the same!
there are âintermediateâ restaurants in our area - some significant portion of the menu is scratch cooked on site from basic stuff. they do not buy babyback ribs falling off the bone from Sysco . . . nor a pork chop supreme that is a three meal dish . . .
Iâd bet tho, some of the sauces are Sysco based, perhaps âdressed upâ a bit.
then thereâs the âhigh endâ places where the chef - as shown on tv - goes out to local markets and selects everything for tonightâs service . . .
in our locale, the intermediate places are $50-$60 per person, the high end places double that.
Thereâs always exceptions to the rules, called the fallacy of exception. Keller using organic frozen fries is the exception to the vast industrial food complex. I donât doubt Keller that frozen fries are easier to fry with better results. Organic frozen fries doesnât dismiss or exclude all the other foods from Sysco and other industrial distributors, or how fewer distributors push out the small but also are ripe for disaster.
You can mention Keller using organic frozen fries a million times and it doesnât change the real nature of Sysco and similar. With only a few large distributors, if the supply chain goes downâŚit goes down for everyone in that supply chain. One could also argue that frozen organic fries are an exception to the vast majority of food Sysco distributes. Most frozen foods are ultraprocessed.
The argument for a diverse supply chain, especially for food, is essentially the same as the call for biodiversityâŚ.if thereâs a disaster, a diverse and varied supply chains can cover for other chains or regions that have been hitâŚjust like a diverse ecosystem has a better chance to survive. With a few big distributors, thatâs not necessarily the case. Frankly if you understand the US defense initiatives, this could be big trouble if a war breaks out. Hack Syscoâs IT and see what happens. Old school wisdom: donât put all your eggs in one basket.
Industrialized food in an industrialized nation is no surprise. Itâ s been documented for a long time. The dangers of a supply chain dominated and run by a few shouldnât be a surprise either. As for how stuff tastes and how it affect the culture of food, eating and tasteâŚ.thatâs another story. Obviously it would be very hard to avoid industrial food but that doesnât mean people shouldnât question it or understand the negatives.
That isnât something specific to food distribution in the US but (and since we are not allowed to discuss politics unfortunately on this board) is a result of policy decisions in the US made many decades ago which affects any part of life in the US far beyond food. Other parts of the world (Europe, Asia - which both areas have their own diverse issues) show examples that it can be also done differently.
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I have enjoyed the burgers and salad and Nepenthe. My family has been going there for 50+ years.
My friendâs husband was the Sysco sales rep for half of Vancouver 20 years ago. A lot of restaurants use Sysco. Sometimes more for bar supplies and dishware, rather than food supplies.
I wouldnât write off an independent restaurant for using Sysco for some of its supplies.
Seeing a Sysco truck at a restaurant doesnât mean all the ingredients are coming from Sysco.
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I think the point the video is making is thatâcurrentlyârestaurants have no choice but to buy subpar, far-from-local, and unethically sourced products because Sysco has pushed out competition in rural areas. With more competition and specialty distributers, those restaurants would have the option to opt for better and/or more local products. I donât think the primary concern in the video is about if a restaurant could be better pre-Sysco. The concern is about losing regional variety (which can still exist within pre-made frozen foods) and ethically sourcing products.
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This video could have been good. But the focus on stuff that we already know is poured out of a plastic bag into a deep fryer makes it seem ridiculous. Does it really matter to me if it was from Sysco or some other large food distribution company?
Right. The video is advocating for smaller distributuion companies more specific to regions and products. In the latter half of the video, they were talking about Syscoâs aggressive business practices and the need for Sysco to be broken up because it has become so large by eating competition.
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I waa just going to say this. My chef pal told me long ago that Sysco delivers bar and cleaning products, as well as fresh produce and meat, so the presence of a Sysco truck does not work as a standalone condemnation.
Having said that, I donât eat out locally because every single restaurant in my town offers the exact same menu: smashburger, fish sandwich, and wingsâŚand they all taste the same.
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There are a fair number of independent restaurant suppliers in Toronto and Ontario, in addition to Sysco. I have 2 friends whose Greek immigrant dads were rivals in the smaller restaurant supply business , that took care of a lot of diners and family restaurants. I think a lot of restaurant food supplies are at that level or have that Sysco kind of pre-made / pre-frozen taste.
At a number of indie burger spots in Toronto , the cheaper burger is a pre-frozen factory made patty. The housemade burger is usually called the Home Burger and costs a few dollars more.
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The factory- made products that Iâm not keen on, which might lead me to order differently if I return:
chicken soup base added to the chicken soup
pre-frozen breakfast potatoes
coated fries
some burgers
some salad dressings (usually Kraft)
bagged lettuce in the salads (I donât order many salads because I donât like bagged lettuce or mesclun mix from a bag)
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I think it says something about a restaurant if theyâre using Sysco ingredients or short cuts and the kitchen is good enough that you canât tell that youâve been eating foods from Sysco.
As a person who used to work in the restaurant business back in the day, the phenomenon that triggered my Spidey-sense with regard to Sysco decades ago was around tomatoes. I kept reading âvine-ripened tomatoesâ on menus only to receive slices of what appeared to be rubber lacrosse balls. It didnât take long to put 2 and 2 together in that any place Sysco was delivering tomatoes to was a place I had to be very careful what I ordered. Kind of a âbroken windows theoryâ of food if you will.
Iâve loosely kept my eye on them ever since (not in a crazy stalker way, just mindfulness). Rubber tomatoes are no doubt better for a supply chain than ripe ones, but the quality difference is staggering.
Increasingly those fish sandwiches and burgers are served on a brioche bun. I pray to the gods that Sysco has found a way to profit from the brioche craze.
If you are going to make a smash burger, I see no point in using anything fresh. Might as well start off with the worst product imaginable.
That is no different than the vine-ripened tomatoes in the grocery stores. Supermarket tomatoes are there for the looks. That is all they sell, good looking tomatoes. Taste is immaterial. They canât move a tomato that doesnât look perfect.
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Have you tried flavor bombs? Theyâre about the only tomatoes I buy out of season. It used to be kumatoes, but theyâve not been what they used to be.
In season I get all my tomatoes from a local farm.
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