Obtaining a Michelin Star isn’t a one-time success story. It’s akin to a lifetime achievement award, or the Nobel Prize that’s awarded for services that stretch beyond a single moment in time.
It’s not an award for a singular achievement but rather a recognition for something remarkable that’s been sustained over time. It’s the highest form of recognition in the food industry (except maybe leaving Gordon Ramsey with a smile on his face).
It’s a journey, in other words, that’s perfected over time.
Now what if we told you that bulk importers and wholesale suppliers can be measured according to the same criteria? Even when you’re working with a bulk catalog as impressive and dynamic as ours, the quality of the journey lies in a lot more than what’s on the menu.
Let’s find out how Source86 lives up to the same standards as a Michelin Star restaurant.
It starts with the quality of ingredients
The starting point of quality food is quality ingredients. But it’s not about sourcing only premium products or luxe ingredients, like truffles, foie gras, and turbot, to capture the attention of inspectors. It’s about using fresh produce and ingredients that are perfectly suited to your recipes.
Every now and then, though, there are restaurateurs and chefs for whom this means looking beyond their immediate vendor base when locally-grown and seasonal ingredients aren’t suited to their menus.
Tan Ken Loon, for instance, chef and owner of Singapore’s The Naked Finn, travels to various cities to find an expansive array of international seafood species and ingredients that simply can’t be sourced locally. This sourcing spree is also down with the intent of buying only from sustainable sources.
Sourcing the right ingredients starts with thoroughly analyzing your catalog and customer base’s demands. The finest brie and camembert in the world are of no use to your brand if your clients want canned cheese they can swirl on a cracker. Finding the perfect ingredient looks different for every buyer, but that’s our mission, to help you find the ingredients that improve your product line or products. Our dynamic vendor base helps us source multiple varieties of ingredients from manufacturers across many regions to bring different characteristics and nuances.
Keep things flowing with a harmony of flavors
Creating stand-out dishes (or products) requires you to keep a practical mind about it. When you have the meal’s character, the diner’s expectations, and the restaurant’s identity, all contributing to the success and coherence of the final experience, there’s only a narrow road you get to maneuver.
When that experience is overpowered by an overabundance of luxury ingredients or an imbalance of flavors, it loses the impact a simpler, more practical approach focused on one main flavor could have had.
Balancing all the flavor categories, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, salty, and umami, all while keeping textures in mind, is a matter of mastering your technique. And it can quickly become a hard task. That’s why practical simplicity often wins the race.
That balanced, practical approach to sourcing that keeps the whole journey in perfect harmony is achieved through our full-service offering, with value-added services such as logistics and warehousing. To bring harmony to the whole supply chain, we stay involved in the entire supply chain, instead of washing our hands of the deal once the products are in the container.
Capturing the personality of the chef in the cuisine
There’s a reason why you can get a Michelin Starred burger. It’s because the same character and dedication that goes into the creation of a Michelin Star experience is visible in every item that comes from a Michelin kitchen. Even when it’s something as simple as a classic hamburger.
It’s the presence of that personality, of something unique, that lies at the heart of the Michelin Star.
So how do you create a brand, a menu, and a team that can capture the personality of a single chef? It’s a mighty feat of branding alchemy in itself. It begins with tearing away the fluff and discovering what it is that truly defines the chef in question, finding the values and spirit that drive their decisions. And most importantly, finding out how that personality can best serve the restaurant’s customers.
As wholesale suppliers and bulk imports, we form a part of that search for the heart of your company’s identity, exploring how it can best be communicated into your ingredients and products. We understand your inventory management cycle and implementation of your ingredients down to the last detail. That insight helps us connect you with the products and unique ingredient varieties that will highlight the personality of your brand even more.
Maintaining consistency across the entire menu and over time
Something that many restaurant-goers and customers may not know, is that a Michelin Star can be taken away from an establishment. The biggest reason for this decision is when there is a lack of consistency in the food being served.
To get a clear picture of a restaurant’s consistency, different inspectors visit an establishment two or three times for each review. This multiple-visit strategy exists because reviewers know that no one is spared from a few bad days every so often. This strategy ensures that delayed suppliers or staff calling in sick don’t result in a missed Michelin Star.
To ensure this consistency, chefs need to train their cooks and create a team that can provide the same level of service even when the head chef is away.
That’s something we’ve taken to heart at Source86. Our team is spread across the globe and works in diverse roles, from logistics to sourcing to sales. All of them understand the Source86 identity, ensuring that you get the same level of service no matter which aspect of the company you’re interacting with.
And what about the notorious fork-on-the-floor test?
It’s been a hot topic on many Reddit and Quora boards, where it’s been made clear that this test, made famous by 2015’s Burnt, was blown slightly out of proportion. Factors such as place settings and clearing the table promptly after a meal do play a role in the review process, but deliberately dropping a fork on the floor? That’s a bit conspicuous.
At Source86 we also like to keep things upfront and transparent, no hidden tests or agendas, just straightforward service.
Get the Michelin Star experience with Source86
When it comes to the Michelin Star, the decor and style of the restaurant don’t factor into the awarding of the recognition. It’s about the food on the plate.
With us, it’s exactly the same. No matter what your industry is, or what your business size is, we want to hear from you and see how we can help you think differently about bulk inventory and ingredient sourcing.
So get in touch with us, and let’s show you what the Michelin Star journey looks like.
