Ontario’s bounty of diverse and varied food attracts culinary tourists from all over the world in search of memorable eating experiences. Each year, millions of people enjoy Ontario’s sumptuous multicultural cuisine served in high-end restaurants.
As Canada’s culinary and food industry evolves and becomes more complex, the need for highly skilled leaders intensifies. In a recent report, Restaurants Canada noted that nearly 40% of restaurant operators felt that a skilled labour shortage was the most important problem facing the restaurant industry today. “Some 18 million Canadians have a meal out on any given day,” the report notes. “For better or worse, our well-being is now intimately tied to the cooks who have the power to shape us, literally and figuratively.”
We go well beyond […] the culinary techniques for making a crème brûlée or a hollandaise sauce.
Tanya Antoine, second-year student
Canada’s first-ever degree program in culinary management
George Brown College, located in the heart of downtown Toronto, is leading the way in training tomorrow’s leaders in the culinary arts. George Brown College is the only Canadian school to offer a degree-level credential in foodservice management. The four-year Honours Bachelor of Commerce (Culinary Management) program is designed to meet the needs of Canada’s foodservice industry by combining the skills of cooking with knowledge of management, business research, product development, innovation, nutritional analysis, gastronomy, and finance.
The intent of the program is to ensure well-rounded graduates can deal with the challenges ahead of them. “We go well beyond learning the culinary techniques for making a crème brûlée or a hollandaise sauce to studying topics like economics, statistics, and managerial communications,” says Tanya Antoine, a second-year student in the program. “I believe that knowing all these different aspects of the industry will make us more valuable to employers.”
Wealth of career options and opportunities
Graduates of the program will have a wealth of food service career options awaiting them, ranging from Director of Food Service Operations, to Executive Chef, to Food and Beverage Consultant. The degree will also qualify them to enter a master’s-level degree program in the fields of business, gastronomy and environmental studies. Graduates of George Brown’s Culinary Management diploma program who wish to pursue this degree may be eligible to enter the third year of the program by successfully completing six “bridge” courses.
The only degree of its kind in Canada, it shapes the present and future leaders of the culinary industry, while developing the path towards tomorrow’s innovations.
Now is the time to become a leader within Ontario’s foodservice industry and expand your skills and knowledge.
