Flavorful Frontiers: Crafting a Tasteful Revolution
There’s evolution taking place in De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s Angelo King International Center (AKIC) Campus where the future professionals of the country’s culinary landscape are found. Benilde’s School of Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management (SHRIM) now offers the Bachelor of Science in Culinary Arts Management. This program responds to the need for graduates to be well-versed not only in cuisine and gastronomy but also in entrepreneurial pursuits and management principles.
“We’re becoming our own program and removing ourselves from hospitality. It’s culinary skills with a management background,” Program Chair Chef Marga Isabel Marty explains. “Everything we’ve learned in the past 25 years, we’ve put into this. We have removed certain courses before to give way to hospitality subjects, which are now back because we see the importance. There’s Butchery, Advanced Baking, Culinary Development, Culinary Research, etc. We also have Restaurant and Kitchen Management; embedded in it is the design of restaurants and commissaries. When our graduates become executive chefs, they are asked to design the layout of their kitchens and dining areas so that they will be efficient and economically stable, allowing the restaurant owner or chef to actually make money.”
In consultation with Benilde’s School of Management and Information Technology (SMIT), the following business courses were developed specifically for the program: Culinary Purchasing and the Art of Food Cost Control, Information Systems for Culinary Arts, Culinary Tourism, Obligations and Contracts, Food Business and Finance Management, Marketing Strategies on the Digital Ages. These include different management systems that can help them operate a good food business if they so choose.
On the culinary side, after completing foundation subjects such as Poultry and Meat Cookery, Seafood Cookery, and Gardemanger and Charcuterie, students are required to take a Competency Examination conducted by the World Association of Chefs’ Societies (WACS). This exam is conducted nearly halfway through the program so the faculty can assess what they need to do before the students move on to cuisines.
The faculty profile is a mixed group of young faculty with veteran chefs, primarily industry practitioners with different specializations, including program graduates. This roster of about forty faculty members has worked in various hotels, own restaurants, catering businesses, and consultancies. There are several executive chefs, one of whom works with the Canadian Embassy in Manila, and another executive sous chef from the Shangri-La Group. To round off the impressive list are four licensed nutritionists and four safety compliance officers. There will be new management professors in addition to the collaboration with Benilde’s School of Management and Information Technology (SMIT).
Chef Marga is proud of what makes Benilde’s Bachelor of Science in Culinary Arts Management unique. “We are very into Filipino cuisine and will continue to have Filipino cuisine. There are two subjects for it. One is the laboratory, and one is the lecture. We teach regionally, too, and the lecture class is culture-based. It’s not just the dishes, like gastronomy, so elevating it again. It’s how cuisine is embedded in culture through history and terrain. We teach that not only for Filipino cuisine but also for international cuisine. We have European, American, Asian, and Middle Eastern cuisines too.”
With veteran faculty at the helm of an industry-grade environment, the program is expected to have graduates grounded on Benildean values and chefs who are entrepreneurial, capable, hardworking, innovative, and ready to make their own mark in the culinary world.
For more information on Benilde’s undergraduate programs, contact us at (63) 2 8230 5100 local 1801 or admissions@benilde.edu.ph. You may also visit our website at www.benilde.edu.ph.
