Darden Restaurants is the owner of many popular and well known restaurants including
Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, Red Lobster, Seasons 52 and many more. Collectively,
Darden rakes in about 5.2 billion dollars in revenue and have more than 1700 locations
across the US and Canada where more than 300 million meals are served annually. Darden
is very keen on ensuring quality in the food they purchase, so much as to go all the way
back to the ponds and lakes they get the food from. There are many issues to deal with
when it comes to ensuring quality, many of which will be discussed in this essay.
Some of the techniques Darden uses to test for quality for every ingredient they use
includes a lot of variety. They measure and weigh the meat where they test to see if they
fall near the ideal length and weight that would ensure a quality product. Also they use
tasting and touching to see if the food products have the correct firmness and taste that
complies to the quality guidelines. Lastly as a bottom line test, which assures both
customers and the company that quality requirements have been met, lab tests or Statistical
Process Control (SPC). SPC tests will be discussed in detail.
To ensure quality from the get go, Darden has an effective means of building quality into
the supply chain. Ana Hooper, who is the Vice President of Quality Assurance, has a team
of 50 food scientist, microbiologists, and public health professionals. This team of
