What started out as a reward for its top operators has turned into a learning experience for Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and its culinary team. Last year, the company debuted the Popeyes Louisiana Heritage Culinary Institute, a three-and-a-half-day event in New Orleans that immerses participants in Louisiana cuisine. The company invites its Gold Plate gold, silver and bronze winners to take part in the New Orleans food tour.
This year, 25 of Popeyes' top franchisees from around the world took part in the program at the end of March.
Amy Alarcon, Popeyes director of culinary innovation, said the program is an opportunity for franchisees to be reminded that the company's culinary heritage goes beyond the brand's core fried chicken. But it's also a source of inspiration for her and her team, which does most of its research and development work in Atlanta, where the company is headquartered.
"I always learn something every time I see it," she said. "I learn a new way of looking at a technique, a new nuance of flavor."
Tasting authentic New Orleans cuisine in its setting provides a chance for her to taste new flavors, seasonings or layers of complexity that she can implement into Popeyes' products. She also revisits the company's classic recipes — which includes Louisiana staples like crawfish (a limited-time offering every November), red beans and rice, and chicken etouffee — tp be assured of their authenticity.
After last year's event, Alarcon and her team drew on the experience to develop a chicken and sausage gumbo that is now under test.
"We were really inspired by the flavor, the color and the texture of what we saw," she said. "So we used that as our idea of the gold standard."
Participants learned from key players in New Orleans' restaurant scene, visited the Crescent City Farmer's Market, were inspired by chef and cookbook author John Folse and participated in cooking classes at a culinary school. This year's program included a new event, a session led by one of Popeyes' longstanding staff members that reinforced the marinating and breading methods used in each of the brand's stores.
And the participants ate a lot, sampling crawfish etoufee, barbeque shrimp, snapper cooked over a live fire and more. Alarcon said she learned a lesson from last year's inaugural event and scaled down on the sampling, but participants still ate a lot of food. The program ended with an authentic crawfish boil, taking participants through the process from start to finish.
While participants do enjoy the food, they also relish the opportunity to visit the city where the chain has its roots. They can visit with some of the chain's strongest brand ambassadors and see how important Popeyes is to them.
"In New Orleans, everyone we talk to has such a love of Popeyes," she said. "Everyone's got their own story and their passion for the brand. They recognize that it was born there, and it's very important to them to make us understand that."
That pride in the brand is reinforced in all the participants throughout the program and is one of the more important takeaways, Alarcon said.
"One of the things we carry away every time we do this is just the whole overall inspiration of being really proud of this brand and everything it stands for — and really feeling the energy and the passion that the people in Louisiana have for their food," she said. "My goal is that everyone walks away from that feeling the connection and the inspiration of their roots."
Read also, Popeyes: Improving the experience.
