Posted by admin  |  October 6, 2017

Taking Chinese chefs and butchers through the steps to properly thaw, cut and cook U.S. pork, USMEF hosted about 75 key foodservice workers in three separate training seminars in Shanghai. Funded by the Pork Checkoff, the seminars highlighted the advantages of U.S. pork over competitors’ products and offered several new ideas for preparing and serving U.S. pork.

Shanghai-Foodservice-1-SFW.jpg“The three seminars were conducted for different audiences and varied slightly in order to be the most helpful to each group,” explained Ming Liang, USMEF marketing director in China. “A cutting expert and a chef presented at each event and participants picked up a lot of knowledge about U.S. pork – not only how to cook it and serve it, but importantly how to defrost and cut U.S. pork that is imported frozen.”

 The U.S. Berkshire Shanghai seminar included training for many of the company’s foodservice clients from the area. Among the topics were cutting and cooking U.S. pork for both Japanese and western-style cuisine, defrosting techniques, plating skills and quality and cost performance.

 Among the U.S. pork cuts showcased were French-cut loin, tomahawk loin, CT butt, jowl meat, boneless loin, tenderloin, single rib belly, regular belly and spare ribs.

 The seminar’s cooking demonstration resulted in dishes such as U.S. pork boneless loin Wellington style, roasted boneless loin with soy sauce and slow-cooked grilled tomahawk loin.

Shanghai-Foodservice-2-SFW.jpgThe second seminar, titled “U.S. pork cutting application training in food service/retail packages,” was held for Beijing Hopewise Trading Co. meat cutters, traders and sales staff. USMEF offered a cutting demonstration and ideas for re-educating the Chinese retail sector about U.S. pork products, highlighting spare ribs, St. Louis spare ribs, bone-in loin and boneless butt. The cooking portion of the seminar featured U.S. pork pan-fried boneless loin with pumpkin puree, grilled St. Louis spare ribs and roasted bacon roll boneless loin with mustard sauce.

   The third seminar, “U.S. pork cutting and culinary applications in foodservice,” was held for various foodservice accounts of Longli Foods of Shanghai. Focused on chefs and distributors, the training included U.S. pork applications in catering and retail, an ingredient cost analysis for chain restaurants and new ideas about cooking U.S. pork.Shanghai-Foodservice-3-SFW.jpg

Featured U.S. pork cuts were bone-in butt, St. Louis spare ribs and bone-in loin. The cooking demonstration featured recipes similar to those at the previous seminar.

“Ultimately, the goal of these seminars was to help these companies take advantage of the taste and quality of U.S. pork and help the entire foodservice sector attract more consumers to U.S. pork,” said Liang. “If the end consumer has a good dining experience, then we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.”