WLC Hosts Mizkan Japanese Food Development Day

Leading chefs and menu developers from the quick service restaurant sector came together at West London College for an immersive Mizkan Menu Development & Market Insight Day, which combined Japanese food heritage, market intelligence, flavour discovery and hands-on menu development.

The event, which took place earlier this week, was designed to explore one of the biggest challenges facing modern foodservice: how operators could respond to consumers’ appetite for exciting global flavours while simultaneously improving speed, consistency and efficiency in increasingly demanding kitchens.

The structured culinary workshop took delegates from an introduction to the Mizkan product range, through a flavour discovery tasting and chef innovation session, followed by professional photography of the dishes and a chef’s table sharing lunch.

The day opened with Welcome to the World of Mizkan, introducing chefs to a company whose history in Japan stretched back more than 220 years and nine generations.

Founded in 1804, Mizkan’s origins were closely connected to sake production. The company developed vinegar from sake lees; a by-product of the sake brewing process, at a time when nigiri sushi was booming in Edo, modern-day Tokyo.

That heritage continued to underpin Mizkan’s focus on authentic Japanese ingredients and Japanese-inspired flavours. The company’s presentation highlighted its considerable presence in Japan, where it described itself as number one in both retail and foodservice.

Felipe Donatelli, Senior Brand Manager at Mizkan, said: “The day was a great success and gave us a fantastic opportunity to work with The Chefs’ Forum to bring the Mizkan brand to life in a hands-on and engaging way. It was particularly valuable to showcase our heritage and new sauce range to prominent chefs and menu developers from across the industry, while also introducing the next generation of chefs at West London College to Japanese-inspired flavours. Seeing the creativity in the kitchen and the different ways our sauces were used was incredibly rewarding. Bringing established industry professionals and students together created a real exchange of ideas and feedback, demonstrating just how versatile the Mizkan range can be across modern foodservice menus.”

Mizkan demonstrated how the sauces could work across sushi, poke bowls, skewers, fried chicken and vegetables, as well as more unexpected fusion applications including burgers, pizzas and carpaccio.

The delegate chefs and students then moved into the college’s purpose-built training kitchens, where they were challenged to develop and plate their own signature dishes using Mizkan ingredients.

The exercise brought the commercial discussion firmly into the kitchen. Chefs considered not only whether a dish tasted good, but whether it could realistically work in a fast-moving, multi-site operation, looking at preparation, repeatability, labour, versatility and speed of assembly.

The ready-to-use format opened up possibilities for creating multiple menu items from fewer products, using sauces for dipping, glazing, dressing, marinating and finishing while retaining consistency between sites.

Once the dishes were created, each finished plate received its “Hero Shot”, with professional food photography capturing the dishes developed during the workshop. The day culminated in a Chef’s Table Lunch, where participants shared their creations, exchanged ideas and discussed potential applications across their own businesses.

As a result of the day, three West London College Hospitality and Catering students were offered trial shifts at Convene with Ross Pike, Mitzu with Aaj Fernando and The Lalit with Praveen Nayak.

The session demonstrated that Japanese-inspired flavours and operational simplicity did not have to be opposing objectives. By bringing together more than two centuries of Japanese craftsmanship with the commercial realities of contemporary UK foodservice, Mizkan gave chefs a practical platform from which to explore the next generation of Japanese-inspired QSR dishes.

Photography by Carlos Farinha @carlosclickuk