U.S. Beef HRI Training Conducted in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait

The workshop in Bahrain featured a variety of beef cuts prepared and served for chefs and foodservice managers

USMEF organized hotel, restaurant and institutional (HRI) training workshops in Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait to highlight underutilized U.S. beef cuts to a larger number of chefs, foodservice professionals and importers in the Middle East. Funding support for the training workshops was provided by the Beef Checkoff Program.

Attending the workshops were more than 100 key decision makers from restaurants, hotels, catering companies and culinary institutions, along with major U.S. beef importers. This was the first time this workshop was held in Kuwait, and USMEF was able to further build on the positive image of U.S. beef in this growing market.

Technical and culinary portions of the workshops were led by Chef Kassem Al Ashek in Kuwait, Chef Marlo F. Detaro in Bahrain and Chefs Ryan Sonson and Emmanuel Pauliat in Qatar. Each workshop was mentored by an expert chef, who presented the different cuts to attendees and discussed several technical and culinary topics. Afterward, U.S. beef dishes were prepared and sampled by chefs and importers.

In order to familiarize participants with the different U.S. beef cuts, Qatar Chef Baran Yucel added a game in which participants were asked to guess the name of some highlighted cuts on a U.S. beef chart. Winners received two aprons – one from USMEF and another from Qatar Culinary Professionals – as well as a sample of the identified U.S. beef cut.

Workshop participants received bilingual brochures titled “Cooking with U.S. Beef” and “U.S. beef cuts for International Cuisine,” which provided details on dry heat and moist heat cooking methods and U.S. beef quality grading.

Participants in the Kuwait workshop learned about a number of U.S. beef cuts and provided ideas for menus and promotion