Thomas Wenrich fell in love with food at the age of 15 while working in a small restaurant in his hometown of Hebron, Connecticut. The teenager was instantly hooked. His family owned and operated an auto parts store in Hebron, but Wenrich said he had no interest in working in the business.
“I love hospitality and the service of feeding people, the teamwork in the kitchen, and the groans and struggles of turning these raw ingredients into a beautiful experience for someone. I fell in love with the process and I knew that was what I wanted to do,” Wenrich said.
He worked in restaurants throughout the Northeast throughout high school and then attended the Johnson & Wales Culinary School in Rhode Island. For the next several years, he worked in restaurants and hotels in Providence. In 2008, Wenrich graduated from Johnson & Wales with a Bachelor of Arts in Culinary Nutrition, Fine Arts and Chef Training. He first came to Springdale in 2009 for an internship at the Discovery Center, where the company develops products for its customers. His experience led him to accept a job as a chef at Newlywedd Foods, a supplier to Tyson Foods. He was based in Springdale and occasionally collaborated with the company's culinary team.
In November 2012, he became corporate chef at Tyson Foods. During his first two years, Mr. Wenrich oversaw product presentation and innovation for Tyson Foods' food service operations. In 2015 he became manager responsible for research and development and senior corporate chef. Wenrich said he oversaw everything from product research and development innovation and food manufacturing to food service operations management. He then became an associate director in the culinary department in early 2017, but his time in the kitchen has decreased and he has become involved in more business functions.
Wenrich said his first six years at Tyson Foods included opportunities to work with food service customers and manage other key business functions, but he left Springdale in 2018 and moved to Ft. He said he took a similar job at Pilgrim's, Tyson's main chicken competitor, headquartered in Collins. He spent four and a half years in Colorado where he oversaw product development and supply where he managed chain and packaging. Wenrich said it was a great learning opportunity, but he still wished he could have spent more time in the kitchen. When he had the chance to return to Tyson Foods to lead the meat giant's culinary operations, he jumped at the opportunity to oversee and collaborate with a diverse group of 14 other corporate chefs and food scientists.
In August 2023, Wenrich moved his wife, Megan, and their young daughter to northwest Arkansas. Wenrich said he loves the region's evolving food culture, but admits that as a Northeasterner he loves pizza and pasta. When the couple lived here before, they both missed pizza, like it was back home. A few years ago, he came back for a business meeting and found the perfect New York-style pizza at his Ruby pizzeria, whose owner, a Boston native, is located in Johnson.
Wenrich jokingly said he knew he would be okay going back to work at Tyson because he and Megan would be able to get the pizza they love. In all seriousness, he said the opportunity to lead Tyson's culinary business and its new leadership and innovation strategy to bring food back to the forefront of the conversation was all the appeal he needed to make the move.
Chef's daily life
Wenrich said his role today covers all aspects of Tyson's products, from early discussions on food concepts to enhancing popular products that have already generated $1 billion in sales. His team oversees each step of the product lifecycle.
“You see how a concept becomes a product idea, takes shape and evolves based on consumer needs,” he said. “Perhaps this would be the perfect addition for a ballpark brand, or Hillshire, a national restaurant chain, a small business, or a university food service. Then customize those ideas to make them specific to your brand. We create products that meet your needs.”
Wenrich said given his short tenure with Tyson on his second tour, all of the products he has been working on so far have yet to be brought to market. But he added that his team members were likely working on newly added products for major retail brands. It's something like foodservice-only frozen chicken sandwich sliders, which began retail sales in March 2023, or Jimmy Dean's Egg Bites, which also hit the market last year, or sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit roll-ups. Maybe. Tyson also launched new products for food service customers, including crispy and spicy filet mignon, mini chicken bites and Pierre's Philadelphia Cheesesteak Melt.
Wenrich said the culinary chefs on his team come from diverse backgrounds. Some have only been out of school for a few years, others have been owners of their own restaurants for many years, and some have worked as chefs in high-end restaurants. They are ethnically diverse, each with some special knowledge and experience. For Wenrich, the choice to become a corporate chef was an easy one.
“If you work in a small restaurant, you might cover 40 meals a night. I've worked in kitchens that cover 500 meals a night, and there's a limit to how many people you can serve in one facility. There is,” he said. “For me, it was the scale of service and how many lives I could touch through food, and this job at Tyson Foods made that even bigger. Learning about food and business was also important to me.”
I also love creating products and working with customers to bring new items to life. Wenrich said much of the work his team does in the 19 test kitchens at the Tyson Discovery Center involves meeting with food service and retail customers to find the right products to fit their needs and lifestyle. I explained that it was about finding it. Wenrich said half of the team works with national retail brands and the rest with large restaurant customers. Products conceptualized at the Discovery Center may be implemented in fast food, casual or fine dining restaurants, retail stores, schools and institutions, and entertainment venues.
Tyson's retail business has grown since the pandemic as more consumers choose to eat at home, but at the same time its food service business has seen mixed results. Before the pandemic, Tyson typically reported that retail sales accounted for about 42% of revenue, food service added more than 36%, and international sales and industrial non-food sales made up the remainder. . Tyson's retail business accounted for 44% of total revenue post-pandemic, with foodservice declining to 29% in fiscal 2022. While the food service business regained a little share last year, Tyson's retail business continues to grow even more, according to the company's financial reports.
Wenrich says teams working with restaurants and food service customers are often looking for entrees to add variety to their menus or improve quality. Similarly, he said listening to restaurant vendor teams and sometimes tweaking existing products is the best solution.
“It's an ongoing conversation about what consumers want and how much they're willing to spend,” he said. “They trust us and we trust them to share our insights to innovate the best menu possible for their establishment. Concepts are prototyped, refined and dismantled over and over again to fit into 14,000 restaurant kitchens.”
Tyson defines a “culinary scientist” as a perfect blender of culinary art and food science who can break down a recipe devised in a test kitchen to ensure it tastes just as good every time you make it. I am. Food is a sensory experience, so chefs pay attention to taste, smell, look and feel so you can enjoy the product with every bite.
Wenrich said his team is spending more time researching customer behavior instead of looking at food trends because customers' level of knowledge about food is higher than ever. He said since the pandemic, as consumers have started cooking at home, there has been a greater understanding of regional ethnic flavors and how ingredients come together in different cooking techniques.
“One of the biggest changes we've seen in the last few years is that consumers have become more educated. Our customers know more about food than ever before, so our The challenge is to try to surprise and delight them,” he said.
Since returning to Tyson, Wenrich has built an “established and empowered team that owns their business and understands the trajectory of each product lane and how to best maximize customer benefits.” We're focused on organizing.'' He emphasized how the partnership between restaurant and retail customers is essential because they all serve the same end customer. Wenrich said his team will spend the next few months loading the new and improved food product into its product pipeline and eventually bringing it to market.
Wenrich said food brings people together, so it makes perfect sense for Tyson Foods to participate in community initiatives centered around food. His team judges events at Brightwater, Bentonville's food research center, auctions off dinners for local charities, and hosts culinary arts students on campus on weekends. They participate in a variety of community initiatives, including discussions about career options and career options. In Tyson's Culinary and Food Business.
“We want to stay connected and support our local community and Brightwater. Some of the people in this building have been hired from the Brightwater program and they have not yet joined my team. But we will continue to foster that relationship and support that community here,” he said.
Megan Wenrich works in research and development for an adult beverage company. Wenrich said they are the perfect food and beverage team and she is happy to be raising her daughter in Northwest Arkansas.
