ED note: I first published this artical 3 years ago and have since had several Sysco reps contact me to dispute various points in this article. Every time, I have invited them to go on record and every time, they’ve had some excuse why they can’t. These are the same guys that go into places with a sales pitch and a plastic smile and sell the products, but they can’t go on the record….. That should tell you something.
I’ve been cooking for longer than a lot of you have been alive and lived all over the US while doing so. At this point I can more or less pick the jobs I take and one of my biggest lines is Sysco.
Point fucking blank: I will not work in a place that uses them nor will I eat at a place that does.
But why? Why is my hatred for this company so strong? What have they done to me that’s so bad that every time one of their trucks my instant reflex to raise middle finger loud and proud?
Their food is polished shit
Real food is not made in a factory on an assembly line like it’s an auto part. It’s made in Kitchens by people who not only know what the fuck they’re doing, they genuinely care. There is no love in the shit they sell. It’s cases of mass-produced shit that posers serve to people too fucking stupid to know better.
They’re either late or early
I’m supposed to be the customer right? I’m buying a product and they’re supposed to live up to their end of the agreement right? So please, please explain why the fuck every time I’ve had to use these fuckers, they can’t ever deliver when they’re supposed to.
No no no, don’t fucking make excuses. This has happened numerous times across the country and in a variety of places so you can’t blame a bad rep or traffic, especially when I point blank tell the rep “If you fuck me on the delivery I will use other vendors” and the next delivery is 4 hours early.
I do not want to be woken up by a delivery driver telling me that he’s going to leave my order behind my restaurant when it’s 90 outside and I tend to have more than the random crackhead wanders by on a regular basis. This is not good customer service.
Neither is showing up at 5 PM on a Friday when I told you I needed the order by noon. Bonus points for the driver parking in front of the restaurant and trying to bring the order in the main entrance. I normally carry a Chef’s knife in my back pocket but when I saw this I made sure I was unarmed before confronting the moron and pushed a 300 pound Cholo out of my way who was trying to keep me out of jail. Fortunately for him, I didn’t have to repeat myself when I told him to bring it through the back door.
I understand that they have a lot of other deliveries and that I tend to be small fish compared to most of their accounts and they don’t give a shit, that my place isn’t a priority. That’s the fucking problem!! They don’t give a shit since once they’ve got you, they’ve got you and they know most places will put up with shitty customer service because they are too lazy to find other vendors or, God forbid
They are responsible for the dumbing down of the industry
Want to know why most Chefs no longer make stock from scratch? It’s because Sysco has made most Chef’s lazy and those of us who want to do things the right way look like fucking lunatics for having standards.
I’m not an elitist by any means as a Chef and most of what I do would be considered “simple” in the eyes of some people who fail to see the bigger picture. The point is, if I’m going to run French Fries and Chicken Tenders to my bar crowd, I’m going to make them fresh from scratch.
Yes, I know, it’s a business, you have to make money. Not all of my ideas work in all of my Kitchens due to various factors but I still know how to make the most out of a small Kitchen while turning a profit without having to sacrifice my integrity. Sysco caters to overworked Chefs as a way to cut corners. Let them do the cutting and the portioning for you, hell, while you’re at it let them make the soups too. It starts with a sales pitch a few freebies with some high gloss flyers highlighting all the key points of “Time-saving” and “Bigger Profits”. You cook shit from a box yet still have the nerve to wear a jacket and tell girls at the bar that you’re “The Chef” while they eat pre-made artichoke dip with the easy bake baguette. But hey, you did a great job putting those micro greens on with your tweezers when you plated it.
Inconsistent prices
Try asking a rep for a price guide so you can write a menu and it’s like pulling teeth and even if you get a list of items, you can’t ever get prices. I get it, they change all the time but what they charge guys like me for a pound of beef and what they charge the guy up the street that uses ten times as much is two different things.
I know, this is a common business practice, you buy in bulk and you save a few bucks. The problem is that that asshole is buying the cheapest shit that Sysco sells and is selling burgers for $5 and making a profit, meanwhile, I’m trying to use meat that’s above dog food grade which means I have to charge a bit more than $5 if I want to make enough to keep the lights on. The customers, because they don’t know any better half the time continues to support the $5 burger because they don’t know the difference between shit and quality.
The places I run tend to be small and I have to make every dime count. I know that prices are going to fluctuate but out of every purveyor I have ever had to deal with, they’ve been by far the worst to deal with in this regard.
They’re salesmen or worse
Former “Chefs”. This is where the old guard gets put to pasture. Either way, they’re not looking out for your best interests at all, they’re looking at what it’s going to take to get that new black Mercedes. Don’t tell me I’ve just had one or two bad reps, I’ve only had one good one and the other dozen or so that I’ve been forced to deal with could have just as easily been coke dealers or used car salesmen.
As a Chef, I don’t give two shits about the packaging or labels. I want high-quality food that I can be proud to serve to my customers, not a fucking sales pitch. I want beef that’s been raised right, fed naturally and slaughter humanely. I’ve worked in bars since I had short hair and could pass a drug test, I know when someone is trying to blow smoke up my ass. It really pisses me off when I let this be known outright and they STILL try to sell me shit in a pretty package because it’s what they’re getting kickbacks on this month.
The worst are the former Chef’s, the guys who went to Johnson and Wales in the 90’s and burnt out after 5-10 years in and realized they were never really Chef’s to begin with. These clowns want to talk the talk but they’re trying to push shit that no self-respecting Chef would ever serve to his customers. Guess what jackass, I run a small menu, I don’t need a 50-pound bag of diced onions, I actually like using my knives and my hands and working directly with the food. I’m still learning and perfecting how to cut an onion and I want my customers to feel the love I put in my food. There’s no love in shit that’s been mass-produced on an assembly line. I wouldn’t serve it to my girlfriend, I’m not serving it to customers, hell, I wouldn’t serve it to my soon-to-be ex-wife and I can’t stand that bitch.
Yet they push it on the tired and weary trying to cut costs and their own hours and they get you on the dry goods, paper towels and plastic wrap and then hit you with a bullshit minimum and convince you to buy their fries and it’s a slippery slope into the abyss of mediocrity in the name of convenience and efficiency.
In closing
While I fully understand that some of you will come to their defense and justify their bullshit, I’ve been dealing with these assclowns for over two decades and am done with it. Fun fact, the term “Culinary Anarchy” was coined one night while I was piss drunk and saw one of their trucks go by and it hit me, they’re what’s wrong with the industry. While we might talk about eating healthy, we really don’t know what the fuck we’re eating when we go out to most restaurants and while they might talk the talk, how much are they really making from scratch?
I get it, as much as I want to make pasta from scratch, at some places the owner is insistent on a pasta dish meanwhile I have neither space nor resources to make it from scratch and have to buy dry product. I can’t make bread from scratch in most places because of lack of space and time and I have to outsource it. I have to choose my battles. That being said, I will gladly pay a buck more for a pound of tomatoes from a local vendor who provides a better product with better service since I only need 5 pounds at a time and not a fucking 50-pound case that will take up already valuable space in the walk-in that I have to share with the bar and a dozen kegs.
Yes, it means that I get my produce from one guy, my meat and seafood from another, and the rest of my stuff from one or two other vendors and it means that I have to make a few more phone calls and write a few more checks. Fine, whatever, I’m a Chef, my job is not to make my life simple and easy, it’s to go out of my way to find the best products possible for my customers. I know how to do the numbers, keep a low inventory and keep my food cost in the mid to high 20’s because I’m not throwing away 40 pounds of shitty tomatoes that I didn’t need.
But what if you live in, let’s say Oklahoma and you have nachos on your menu. Avocados are stupid expensive in Seattle right now and I can’t imagine that it’s much better out there. You either have to charge more for fresh guac, by the premade shit in the plastic pastry bags (a great way to store it by the way), or not have it on the menu. Two of the three options lead to customers bitching and this is where you need to step the fuck up and explain that they can either pay more or not have it but that you’re not serving shit.
Or you make excuses and justify it. You say it’s out of your hands yet you still make the choice to go in every day and do it and get pissed off when guys like me call you out. You know in your heart of hearts how fucked it is and yet when confronted, you give the same bullshit sales pitch that they gave you and act like I’m the bad guy for having standards and taking pride in my work.
Listen up, I’ll never in a million years work in let alone run a Michelin rated Kitchen but for fuck’s sake man, we can do sooooooo much better. It’s up to those of us in the industry that have the kind of resumes that allow us to make demands. While I’m nothing special, when I go to an interview, one of the first things I ask is if they use them and if so, I get up and walk out immediately, regardless of how much they’re offering unless they are willing to let me terminate the contract immediately. I’m not special but I pride myself on costing these fuckers a few bucks over the years by standing my ground.
As things go from bad to worse in the industry with no signs of improvement, we have to step up as Chefs and take direct action. We have to stop making excuses and stop fucking compromising. We’re Chefs!!! Raise the bar even if it means charging an extra couple of bucks or cutting the portion size. Support and endorse the local guys and stop trying to put thirty items on your menu to please everyone and focus on quality, not quantity. While they will always have a market in large institutions, it’s up to the smaller guys to stand up and not let them continue to fuck what’s left of the industry.
emotionally stated.. but to be fair.. if you order from sysco, just be careful WHAT you order and plan accordingly.. some of their worthy products are demand status and have a lead time.. they value (and rightfully so) shelf space and turnover so that their products are constantly turning over… Except for the chef’s express and demand status stuff.. they CAN get anything you want, if you have the organization ( and space and time) to plan.. I have worked for the ritz carlton hotel company for 15 years.. worked in napa valley for 14 years, mauna kea beach hotel, kingsmill resort, taught culinary in korea, etc. etc. have been in the business for 35+ years.. if you pick and choose what you get from any company you will get quality stuff, including sysco and sysco owned companies.. maybe you just hate big businesses?
And to be fair, I’ve worked in a lot of similar operations and I’m sure we could swap stories. In a place like Yellowstone for example that’s feeding thousands of people per day, they’re the only ones that can pull it off. That being said, I’m also at the point in my life that I just won’t put up with the bullshit anymore. I rather focus on smaller numbers and be able to get creative with the local stuff. The thing is, the general public doesn’t know what’s really going on and I hope with articles like this, they’ll have a better understanding. Thank you for taking the time to write some very well thought out feedback instead of being an ass about it.
Actually, he hit it right on.
Their sales people jack prices up after they have your trust.
They will try to get your trust any way they can! Sysco sales people are scum bags, I will never use Sysco again, haven’t for 20 years, will never use the scum of the earth a-holes again!
you might be listened to and respected if you’d clean up your mouth and act more professional than the ones you are using such despicable language about. !
Dude, the site is called Culinary Anarchy. Have you ever set foot in a Kitchen? In regards to respect, I get the job done and am respected by those who matter to me. Who the fuck are you to tell me how I should speak?
No words for you asshat!
Ridiculous.
I worked for a company that purchases well over 500million dollars/ yr worth of produce from Sysco in Canada alone. We would get notifications on changing costs of products far in advance, because our buying power was absurd. Literally similar to how when McDona;ds was introducing smoothies, they had to wait 3yrs so that the blueberry growers could have to time to grow enough fruit. People always forget that succesful companies like Sysco, or McDonalds, aren’t succesful because they are shit. Any Sysco reps I dealt with were awesome and would figure out any solution to help they could. If you don’t want toeat anywhere that uses Sysco, just don’t go out. Not to restaurants only, but hospitals, Starbucks, Timmy’s, BurgerKing, Prison, School, University, on planes… You are an embittered idiot, it seems. Maybe you should run better restaurants that Sysco cares about, or just not make up bullshit
I’m not serving industrial shit to prison inmates, I work in smaller places where the focus is on quality, say it with me, quality, over quantity. Now, for various reasons I can finally come clean with the fact that I have recently finished a job with a company that uses Sysco. I did this for research. Plain and simple, the produce that we were getting from the farm down the road was far better than the shit Sysco delivered.
The thing is, if I’m soooo wrong, why won’t they go on the record? Hmmmm?
I stand with small business. I support small business not only here but with my dollars.
Please by all means, explain what was made up bullshit in the article? Better yet, tell me who you work for so I know to never eat the shit you clearly take pride in serving your customers.
Sysco has the best protein bar none.
The meat you are buying from restaurant depot is pure garbage and it’s not consistent from the same vendor.
Please do tell me where you work. I’d hate to eat any temperature sensitive food item on your menu, considering you haul it to your place in a car. Sysco at least has temperatures set in their trucks.
First off, where the hell do you come off taking that tone with me? Second, I’d love to know how high you are right now. They might have refrigerated trucks but that doesn’t do anything when they leave your products sitting outside your back door. You know they got fined by the state of California for doing this don’t you? It’s clear that you don’t know anything about me or where I work since I don’t advertise thanks to assholes like you and I’m over 150 miles from the nearest Restaurant Depot. Oh, and I use coolers when I shop, they’re these big plastic insulated boxes that keep food at a stable temp. Ever heard of them? Get your facts straight and change your tone bub, I’m not the one.
I agree with you Sysco is a company for lazy chefs just cut the bag open and instant crap 💩, I liked the days when every thing was cooked from scratch, I understand that in large chains that the only way for consistency is places like Sysco, to be fair I’m a heavy equipment repair man retired,and dabled in a couple of small restaurants for friends. Love to cook but far from classic Training.
I love reading your blog…friggin hilarious. You are spot on, I would be thrilled to try your cooking though sadly live on the east coast. I don’t have to tell you to “stay true to yourself”..dude, you already are!!! Keep on being the authentic, awesome chef that you are and fuck the rest of the lazy bastard cooks that middle finger those of us who DO appreciate real food. And fuck Sysco!!