At America’s Test Kitchen, up to 35 test cooks develop recipes year-round in our facility in Brookline, MA. We spend roughly half a million dollars on groceries every year. So, how does that much food get into the Test Kitchen five days a week?
Unlike restaurants or professional kitchens who buy in bulk, the Test Kitchen only purchases home-goods sized ingredients; meaning the same cans of 28 oz. crushed tomatoes and boxes of salt that you can get at your grocery store. This is because the recipes we develop are for home cooks, and we want to be able to replicate your experience in our Test Kitchen.
To get that many individual products in the Test Kitchen every day, Assistant Test Kitchen Director Gina Nistico has devised a system where organization reigns supreme to keep test cooks supplied with the ingredients needed to create everything from perfect scrambled eggs to worry-free roast turkey.
Amazingly, the Test Kitchen is able to do this with a turn-around time of less than 24 hours, with each item ordered involving as many as 11 people, from bag boys to food stylists. I spoke with Gina to learn more about the process.
Step 1: Requesting Ingredients
Every weekday, test cooks place their grocery requests into a an online spreadsheet accessible by any computer. This isn’t your typical shopping list. Because of the detail required in recipe development, test cooks will often specify (within ¼ inch), everything from the thickness of the pork chop to the diameter of the potato.
Step 2: Sorting the List
At 2 p.m., Test Kitchen Manager Leah Rovner sorts the giant list into categories and places the orders online and over the phone, depending on where they’ll come from. Because the Test Kitchen also tests (and ranks) grocery items, Leah typically orders the winning brand for each grocery item (i.e. Swanson’s Certified Organic Free Range Chicken Broth). That being said, they will often bring in non-winners to ensure that a recipe will hold up even with different brands.
Step 3: Ordering Groceries
Most of the food is ordered from one of three purveyors – Sid Wainer and Son Specialty Foods, Constitution Seafood, and Roche Bros. While many items may be available year-round, seasonal items can be harder to locate. Because of our publishing schedule, the Test Kitchen may be testing turkey recipes in the middle of spring. Gina relies on relationships with local providers to help her source seasonal items that aren’t always available. Imported and hot-house produce also may be purchased to help create a seasonal recipe, off-season.
Step 4: Specialty Shopping
After Leah finishes sorting the shopping list, Senior Kitchen Assistant Meryl MacCormack is assigned to purchase specialty items. This list includes food that will be photographed and needs to look a certain way, or items that other purveyors can’t deliver. Meryl, who knows every grocery store’s layout like the back of her hand, goes in-person to pick up the needed products. Her daily hit list usually includes Whole Foods and at least two major regional chains, Shaw’s and Stop & Shop.
Step 5: Delivery
The morning after the orders have been placed, the deliveries start shuffling in between 8:30-10:00am. At this time, a crew of eight kitchen interns carefully checks the shopping list against the deliveries, reporting any errors to Meryl, who deftly rectifies within the same day. Getting the exact ingredients is a non-negotiable part of recipe development – while home cooks, in a pinch, may interchange pork loin for tenderloin ingredient, consistency is vital to ensuring our recipes work not just in the Test Kitchen, but anyone’s kitchen. Once the shopping list is checked twice, the interns get busy sorting and storing the ingredients in each Test Cook’s individual cabinet and cold storage areas. In less than 24 hours, all 35 test cooks will have all the ingredients they need to continue developing a new recipe.
What are some other Secrets of the Test Kitchen you’d like to see posts on? Let us know in the comments for a chance to win a copy of The Best Simple Recipes. The winner will be notified by email on Tuesday, Sept. 4.
About the Author: Marshall Bright
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Who does all the dishes and is tasked with cleaning up in the test kitchen? How do they keep those sheet pans looking so new and shiny?
i want to know what the fridges/freezers look like! and how they’re organized. and if there is a pantry, what that looks like. i’m sure it all needs to be efficient so i’d love to see pictures.
I would love to know how you guys organize your pantry. Any tips and tricks for better kitchen organization would be great!
What do you do with all the food you cook? Is it donated?
How do you keep your pantry and inventory organized? Not just how much of something you have, but where to find it. And how to keep things organized and located when you have so many cooks in the kitchen.
Hi bmallie, funny you should ask! We just answered that very question last week: http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/test-kitchen-community/2012/08/what-happens-to-the-test-kitchens-leftover-food/ (Hint: Some of it gets donated, yes! Much of it is eaten here, too.)
I’d like to know more about how Jack does an ingrediant tasting panel. On the show we only get to see the end when Chris comes in and does the tasting. What all happens before that?
How about a post on how you keep up with the dirty dishes? Who gets dish duty there?
Hi Rebecca, here’s a fun newspaper article that highlighted our fabulous kitchen assistants and dishwashing staff: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/sink_or_swim_wFxyDifl3sDNaXQAg1NrKL
I’d love to see an interview for a position at CI.
I know Chris has talked about his ‘bake me a cookie’ interview, but a proper hidden camera or accounting of how it goes would be amazing – what if he has 1 job opening and 10 great cookies, what process do they take – does the interviewee know they are coming in and baking or is it on the fly…
i’d also love to see an “IN A PINCH” episode – not the same old thing of adding lemon juice to milk for buttermilk… but bigger ones. In a pinch, you need to thaw a huge roast (because the turkey you were brining in that coolerjust got snagged by the dog and you found it hidden in den… licked and nibbled on)
or how you handle turkey to replace for a pork recipe for people that don’t/can’t eat pork… or the dairy free-ers… can you replace milk with soy or should it be almond or rice milk?
things like that!
I was wondering if you all had monthly work birthday parties/luncheons there for the staff. I saw a picture on instagram of someones birthday party and thought that it would be a perfect venue for such events and a great morale booster for the employees. Even though food is cooked there all the time, it is always fun to have a special birthday luncheon
On the ATK show are the chefs in the background really cooking or are they acting?
How do you pick the recipes that you test/perfect? With so many different foods, cultures/cuisines and special diets, how do you decide what recipes are worth testing?
Hi everyone! Thanks for your suggestions– keep any eye out on our Secrets of the Test Kitchen series to see if any of them get answered. The contest is now closed, congratulations to Jillian. For more contest opportunities and giveaways you can check http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/topics/giveaway/ for the most recent opportunities.
-Marshall
I posted this request on face book as well – I’d love to see you guys review recipe software that does this type of organization, for the home cook. Maybe you’ll find something you can use! There’s so many different apps and software to choose from, it’s hard to know which one is best.