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Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

We are with Santiago Rivera, he is a chef.

Hi, Santi, would you please start by introducing yourself, how long have you been a chef and how
long have you been studying?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Hello, how are you, a pleasure to talk to you all, can you hear me well, can you hear me well?

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

Yes, perfect.

Laura Valentina Garzón Sánchez

Yes, perfect.

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Ah, well, ready, ready, perfect.
Well, I'm a cooking technician from SENA, I'm a business administrator from the Xaveriana and my
experience is in Australia. I worked in a restaurant called Gary Club, which was specialized in
French food.
In the Czech Republic, I worked in a hotel in the hospitality part as Armani, as supervisor of the
food and beach
area.
And in Colombia I worked in Harry Sasson for about 1 year. So let's say I have some experience
with 5 star 5 forks food issues and I have also worked as an entrepreneur developing my own
events in different types and with pastry.
I don't know if you want to know anything else or that's more than enough.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

You have good, quite a lot of experience. Santi in your field, let's say as an entrepreneur, what do
you mainly see in the cooking market, like what do you see, what do you hear?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Well, when I studied cooking there was a boom in gastronomy. Then many people entered this
world, but they realized how complex it really was. Cooking sacrifices a lot of time, it requires a lot
of effort.
So I can say that, although there was a great offer, now it has diminished a little. And after the
pandemic, the demand also decreased a lot. Companies and restaurants that had interesting
proposals had to go under because of the pandemic.
Since there were not so many customers, then let's say that the cuisine is evolving more towards a
cuisine of experience, not so much the food seen as something that only fills you up, but as a
moment to share, as in family, with friends.

And I think that as an entrepreneur in the food area you have to focus a lot on issues related to
offering this, offering experiences, offering something different and not just, let's say, filling people
up, which is, at the end of the day, what food does.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

Yes, we do understand in the field of food, tell us a little bit, how is your process or how was the
process about fresh products? Well, you were telling us that it was offered as an experience and
you were in an environment of sharing with the family and that, but today that the kitchen has
evolved and that people are more given to fresh products, how do you think the market looks like
and how was your experience with that?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Well, look, fresh products really make the difference when you are going to cook. Not only fresh
products, the quality of the products, a good cut of meat that is well matured, that has had a GMP,
which are good manufacturing practices, have a great influence on the quality of the final product.
Here in Bogota, at least the place where you get the freshest products is in Corabastos, so it is
usually a place where you go to buy things. You have to go very early in the morning to look for the
best products, which are the ones that haven't been beaten. Normally you can have a little bit
higher price, but it justifies. They are to some extent more natural and they are scarce and hard to
get. Sometimes because of this same reason.
And so it can be, it can be complicated to try to sell products if you high quality restaurants
because of this issue.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez In words, what do you think would be like those strengths and
those disadvantages of Del mercado de la cocina?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Strengths, people will always have to eat, we will all have to eat 1, 2 and 3 times a day, but it is
something that we have to do every day because it is part of us, it is important for us to survive.
Let's say that this assures a constant demand, so it is like a business that every day you are giving
us something to eat, something that we have to do every day.
Disadvantages I would say, at least right now with the variation of the dollar prices and at least
with the war in Russia, Ukraine, there are products such as flour that have become quite
expensive.
That, well, makes it difficult to make some dishes or makes you have to play with the portions to
be able to sell people almost the same product, but well.
The price always goes up a little and sometimes that decreases, it affects the demand level quite a
lot.
One of the disadvantages that I consider to be one of the most important is that, at least here in
Colombia, if you try to look for fresh products, the roads are difficult to travel on, so sometimes
this means that the best products do not arrive or that the transportation of these products is
quite difficult and the price of all the supplies you need to make all the dishes becomes quite
expensive.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

Talking about the road issue, Santi, how did you manage the food transportation process, for
example, I don't know, you ordered tomatoes and there was a strike and you didn't receive them,
how did you do it so as not to lower the quality of the products, what was your plan B?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Well, normally you have to pre-visualize that, so let's say when you have a restaurant with a high
demand, what you do is that you reach a certain quantity, you store a certain quantity and you take
it out of what is stored to generate a constant rotation and to always have it in case something
similar happens.
But let's say that at a very real level, Colombia has the advantage that we produce a lot of
foodstuffs and transportation is easier. In
addition, you usually go to the market afterwards; they may charge you more, but the products are
there in rotation. It is not as marked as one day to the next when fruits or vegetables disappear.
And if not, you have to try to see what is in season and leverage on that to make different dishes. I
don't know, if tomato is very expensive, then no, you don't sell tomato soup, but you try to sell
potato soup, celery soup. There are more options. So you can take turns and put together the
menu according to the options you see in the plaza.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez More or less how many plates did you sell per day?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Well, I'm sure it wasn't my restaurant if it wasn't Harry's, but you name it, Ah.
Yesterday you could sell more or less between 200 and 250 tables when I worked there. So, you say
there were 3 or four dishes per table, more or less 1000 different dishes per day. So that generates
like a high turnover.

0:8:28.630 --> 0:8:29.570

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez
OK Santi.

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

But on average it also depends a lot on the type of business, because if it is fast food, you can be
selling 1002 or 1000 portions in a single day. If they are, for example, empanadas or hot dogs. If
they are very specific 5-star dishes, there can be 100, 150, there is quite a lot of demand.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

Listo, Santi, Santi, tell us what was the food waste process like?
 Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)
Well, Harry said that you can't waste anything. You have to use one hundred percent of all the
inputs, because they are very expensive. So, for example, when asparagus arrived,
people would eat the top part of the asparagus and the base of the asparagus stalk would remain,
and what was done was to cut that part and store it, and with it we made asparagus cream, with
the fruit skins we made aromatic herbs, with the chicken and duck bones we made a kind of sauce.
In other
words, you have to maximize 100% and try to get everything out of the waste. Yes, if you are
wasting any part of the fruit, vegetables or meat, you are losing money.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

OK Santi, well, ending the interview, as an entrepreneur, what advice would you give to a company
like Frubana, I don't know if you have heard of Frubana?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

No, could you give me a context?

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

OK, of course. Frubana is a company that buys fresh produce from farmers and gives it to them,
well, let's say that they removed the distribution process, in the outsourcing and directly offered it
to restaurants, schools and foundations, but in this process, well, let's say that Frubana told us that
they had a waste of food, a loss, so you as an entrepreneur and as an employee of a great
restaurant with a great reputation as Harry. What advice would you give to minimize that loss?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Well, it depends a lot on the type of shrinkage if they are vegetables. I would consider the
possibility of extending the shelf life by freezing them and try to make the effort to store them.
Well, at least when I saw the Czech Republic in Europe, many vegetables were frozen and that
extends their life to about 3 months. So yes, if I were them I would try to push for like a frozen
vegetable storage chain. Which can extend the life of these vegetables a little bit.
Hey, but also Green Juices are in fashion; you can consider the possibility of I don't know, chard,
spinach. You can freeze them, you can grind them and make green fruits that you just mix with
water and in the morning you can drink it.
The same for fruits, at least here it is not as marked as in Europe, but in Europe, when you are
there, people eat jam for breakfast because it is very difficult to get fresh fruit. So, if you could try
that instead of damaging the fruits, store them, transform them into liquors, into jams. And maybe
exporting them could also give them an added value.
And in the end, I do not know how to make like a Nathan, the auction, so to speak, like today, big
discount of tomatoes, just for today to take I do not know how many kilos of tomatoes for 2000,
1000 pesos, at least that justifies the cost of transportation and that is not lost, and now whoever
buys it and uses it that same day, then it could be a good way to try to maximize the use of fruits
and vegetables without throwing them away, because I don't really know if you know, but more or
less 30 or 40% of food worldwide is wasted.
And we have one worldwide, almost 900,000 people who are starving or who are undernourished,
so we need to try to generate this issue of food security for the whole world and I think that this is
a good option to extend the shelf life of food.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

Thank you Santi. Lau has a question.

Laura Valentina Garzón Sánchez

That's yes, Kath. Thank you. Santiago, good afternoon,

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Hello LAU.

Laura Valentina Garzón Sánchez

Here, listening to your answer, you were talking a little bit about not only food waste as such, but
also capitalizing on it. Would you have any other suggestion, but focusing a little more on
capitalizing on that waste, or would you stick with what you have just provided?

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Well, what I am telling you, let's say, all organic products have the possibility that there are
different types of preservation, you can add sugar to them and turn them into jam.
Let's say, they can be smoked like tomatoes, pickles and with that you add them, that is, you get
different products that here are not so marked because we are used to eating fresh, but in Europe
they are very marked, no, all the sausages come from there because they did not have many times
to eat fresh food and they had to try to maximize the life of the children.
So I would say like what I suggested, and finally, if it already has a lot of waste, you can just turn it
into compost and maybe give it to farmers or sell it super cheap to farmers than sometimes the
traditional compost that we import, which comes from oil. The rest is very expensive for them and
the farmer is not earning a minimum wage and does not get enough value to be able to invest in
the fields. So I think that would be another good way to deal with the decline.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

Thank you.

Laura Valentina Garzón Sánchez

Ready, thank you very much.

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Dale.

0:15:15.15.190 --> 0:15:18.620

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez
I don't know if anybody else has any questions or if not, that would be it.

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Nothing.

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

Dale.

Katherine Quevedo Velasquez

OK, perfect, Santi, thank you very much for giving us a little bit of your space. See you another
time.

Miguel Rivera (OMG Colombia)

My pleasure, have a nice day.

Laura Valentina Garzón Sánchez

Thank you very much, Santiago, thank you as well.

Camila Andrea Sanchez Samaca

Thank you very much, Santiago.