New England, U.S.A.-based culinary staffing agency SnapChef is joining the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts to support the use of sustainable seafood in modern cooking.
Through live cooking demonstrations at this year’s Seafood Expo North America, hosted at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center this past week from 19 to 21 March, the collective served up sustainable fishcakes to thousands of buyers and suppliers. SnapChefs alongside SnapChef interns from Johnson and Wales University partnered with the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association to execute fishcake recipes created by the latter using two sustainable seafood species, hake and pollock.
“The Seafood Expo North America serves as an opportunity to show our SnapChefs first-hand the significance of local, fresh, sustainable seafood. As the leading training firm that knows about seafood, SnapChef is committed to exposing young chefs to sustainable seafood early on so that they are familiar with different types of seafood throughout their culinary career,” said Todd Snopkowski, SnapChef founder and CEO. “This diversity in dishes not only sets them apart from other chefs, but also helps the communities in which our SnapChefs are placed in.”
The mission of SnapChef is to combat the culinary and seafood industry’s shrinking labor pool and rates – data from the National Restaurant Association finds 18 percent of restaurant operators struggling with ‘recruiting and retaining employees’; it’s the top challenge for their businesses, according to the survey – by providing culinary job opportunities to individuals throughout New England.
“Through their unique culinary training approach, Snapchef prepares individuals for long-term success in the culinary field,” said the company. “Part of this approach is Snapchef’s ongoing relationship with the City of Gloucester to ensure that all Snapchefs are versed in the importance of fresh, local and sustainable seafood.”
SnapChef has five locations around New England: two in Boston, one in Holden, Massachusetts, one in Rhode Island and one in Worcester, Massachusetts. The company typically deals with 450 customers at a time, placing 200 workers per day. In October 2016, Snaphef announced plans for a Fast Track Culinary Truck “to provide mobile kitchen training and create opportunities for residents in Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” and recently announced the launch of Snapchef Permanently, an online platform that provides culinary clients permanent placement of culinary kitchen staff of all levels as well as food service executive placement. The company will use the mobile application SnapApp to ease and optimize the process, it said.
