Comment: The 4 Corners internship

EDUCATION: 4 Corners and The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management give Hebah Al Blooshi an internship to investigate the UAE F&B market supply chain over six months

Last year’s 4 Corners and Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM) internship was a success; you may remember Michael Oleynikov experienced the fruit and vegetables supply chain from the growing fields in Spain right through to the product arriving on the plate in the best kitchens in the UAE.

I am delighted to say that the same partnership is in force this year, with a view to ramping up the industry’s awareness of the green supply chain and the impact we have as chefs, hoteliers and restaurant operators on the UAE’s environment by using multiple suppliers.

We have all seen it: the long stream of lorries waiting to get into ‘goods in’ or the ‘receiving area’, as it is now called in many establishments. The flurry of paperwork that gets passed from person to person, as invoices are signed, countersigned and once more for luck! Then there’s the headache of a supplier not turning up or being late, or having queued for an hour, only to have the product rejected because the driver turned the engine off while he was waiting, and therefore the refrigeration!

I am being provocative to make a point, but you all know where I am coming from. This multi-supplier madness is not how it works elsewhere in the world, and food distributor exclusivity to certain brands has created a beast of a supply chain here. I am not sure if it is, but it feels like 25 vehicles turn up for every 100 products delivered. Elsewhere we would be looking at four, maybe five for all products, not just the 100.

As an industry we concentrate so heavily on improving our impact on the environment, in rooms, in packaging, recycling, even the great use of composters, but we seem to forget about the thousands of vehicles that travel up and down the roads of the Emirates every day with one or two boxes of bananas or olive oil.

I could go on, but as you can see, this is why EAHM and 4 Corners selected this topic for our intern’s investigations over the next six months. Our 4 Corners intern this year is Hebah Al Blooshi, and her journey begins with interviewing the leading chefs in the UAE, and asking them for their experiences on this matter, whilst understanding their real requirements for the number of suppliers, and how they would like to see the supply chain managed in the future.

Hebah will be working in ‘goods in’ at various hotels and restaurants to understand how the process of intake is managed today, travelling to the UK to spend a week with one of the country’s leading distributors to understand how the journey has evolved in a more mature market, and then she will be off to one of Britain’s leading environmental hotels to see how best practice is operationally executed.

Hebah will also be engaging with the local government in the UAE to understand how they see the impact of the supply chain as we move closer to Expo 2020, particularly with one of the key messages being ‘sustainability’.

She will also peer into the future to understand the techniques that we should be looking at in the food industry, to give this market the leading edge. Then, after viewing best practice examples already from around our seven Emirates, she will return to take centre stage at the 4 Corners exhibition stand at the Speciality Food Festival in November, before presenting back to her peers and the trade her findings at the end of the year.

I am sure you will agree this is a critical study that could massively change the way we look at the supply chain in the UAE forever. I am fascinated to find out how many food miles are being used unnecessarily with all the trucks flying in and out of our hotels and restaurants, and how we can all benefit from reduced deliveries, reduced paperwork and reduced chaos back-of -house!

Michael Kitts is director of culinary arts at The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management. Hebah Al Blooshi is sponsored by food service & one-stop shop experts, 4 Corners.