Fresh Choice Restaurants

The low-fat San Jose chicken chili fits right into the menu at this chain where the name — Fresh Choice — says it all.

“Most of our menu is pretty healthful eating,” says Tina Freedman, senior vice president of product development and purchasing for the Morgan Hill, Calif., chain.

The Freeman, senior vice president of product development and purchasing for Fresh Choice Inc., left, and Ingrid Walatka, director of product systems, with a bowl of low-fat San Jose chicken chili.

The Fresh Choice self-serve restaurant concept was launched in 1986 and now has 41 stores in California, Texas and Washington. The company also operates five Zoopa and three Fresh Choice Express restaurants. Sales last year topped &78 million, up 5.3 percent from the volume in 1999. Annual store sales today average &1.625 million.

The company anticipates building three new stores this year and then growing by 10 to 15 percent a year after that.

The chain recently remodeled 22 restaurants, and according to company president Everett “Jeff” Jefferson, “With the remodeling program complete, we can now devote our free cash to new restaurant growth.”

Fresh Choice is an all-you-can-eat buffet concept featuring a salad bar with more than 60 items. Customers get a tray, build their meal and go back as often as they like.

“It’s not your traditional buffet because it’s more oriented toward fresh products that are more healthful alternatives,” says Freedman, who joined the company in 1992 as a restaurant manager before being named head of product development and purchasing in 1996.

The low-fat San Jose chicken chili hit the menu in January and will rotate through on a cyclical basis as the chain continues its pattern of revising its menu every month.

According to Freedman, “We wanted something different from traditional chili — something fresh, light and colorful that would incorporate a lot of ingredients.”

The result was a chili with California style. “To make it low fat, we just stayed away from traditional cheese and high-fat products,” she explains. “For example, by using chicken, we were able to use a low-fat protein. We also steamed the products instead of cooking with oil.”

Starting in January, when customers headed for the buffet at Fresh Choice, they had a new option — low-fat San Jose chicken chili, featuring a steaming dish of chicken, corn, bell peppers, white beans, tangy tomatillos and mild chilies, seasoned with fresh cilantro and a hint of garlic.

“Each month we promote a different product or a different concept,” she explains. “In January we elected to do a promotion for all our low-fat and fat-free products for those who wanted to live up to their New Year’s resolutions. In the center of that promotion was the San Jose chicken chili.”

Freedman notes that customers really responded to the new item. “We did a really good redemption at that time, too, offering people an incentive to come into the stores,” she explains. “As a result, our comparable-store sales were up in January.”

When it came down to actually developing the dish, Freedman played the leader, doing all the cooking in the chain’s Valley Fair location in San Jose. One of the challenges presented by the new dish was making sure that stores cooked it the proper length of time to ensure the right consistency.

Developing dishes for Fresh Choice is no sacrifice for Freedman, the mother of two boys, ages 9 and 12. She and her husband, Dean, met in the foodservice industry. They both love to cook. “We push each other out of the kitchen,” she says, joking.

As is true of many people with a love of cooking, one of Freedman’s favorite memories was cooking in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother. “They’re both Southern cooks, so I learned various Southern specialties.”

Many recipes from those early years have found their way onto the Fresh Choice menu. Her mother’s macaroni salad is a popular item in every restaurant. Earlier this year the chain featured her grandmother’s chicken and dumpling recipe. It, too, was a great success. “I’m shamelessly stealing from my family,” she says. “But, hey, it works.”

What thrills Freedman most about the restaurant industry is its immediacy. “It’s great to make new foods and watch the response from our guests and our crew members.”

The on-the-go Fresh Choice environment is also stimulating. “We change the menu so often that it allows me to try new things, put new products out and gauge the response.”

The San Jose chicken chili, for example, was such a big hit with customers that it probably will reappear on the menu in the near future. But not everything is so successful. “Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose,” Freedman says.

A lot of her recipe ideas come from visiting other restaurants and sampling the fare. “It’s tough eating out in restaurants,” she says, “but someone has to do it.”

Like most restaurant companies, Fresh Choice faces its challenges. “Shrinking labor and trying to train people to produce a consistent product is a real challenge,” she says. That task is made tougher because all food at Fresh Choice, which is more than 100 items for lunch and diner, is prepared fresh every day, which is why it’s called Fresh Choice.