The Professional Personal Chef: The Business of Doing Business as a Personal Chef

The job of professional personal chef is one of the fastest growing careers in foodservice. People are choosing to become personal chefs in order to have a culinary career on their own terms, with a self-determined schedule and freedom from restaurant strictures. Not only do personal chefs have the chance to work with food in a more creative, personalized way, they are also able to approach their careers with a more entrepreneurial business sense.

Written by Candy Wallace, the founder and Executive Director of the American Personal and Private Chef Association (APPCA) and Greg Forte, CEC, CCE, AAC, The Professional Personal Chef offers the definitive guide for starting and growing a successful professional personal chef business. It covers the skills and competencies required for the American Culinary Federation's Personal Certified Chef certification, and lays out a practical road map for this challenging but rewarding career.

Filled with resources rich in detail, this useful and engaging text covers:

• The evolution of the professional personal chef career path
• The benefits and disadvantages of various forms of business ownership
• Operating legally
• Writing an effective business plan
• Creating a vision statement, mission statement, and elevator speech for your personal chef business
• Managing and securing finances
• Identifying target markets and revenue streams
• Developing marketing and sales plans and quality customer service
• A day in the life of a personal chef

In each chapter, learning outcomes, key terms, and review questions reinforce the key concepts. From the Field features present interviews and real world experiences from working personal chefs.

A complete instructor support package providing business resources, syllabi, and project suggestions is posted on a companion Web site at www.wiley.com, and also offers sample business plans, recipes for menus, forms, and other useful documents.

Culinary arts instructors seeking a classroom text, as well as individual culinary professionals and amateurs interested in starting or growing a personal chef business, will find The Professional Personal Chef the essential A-to-Z guide to this exciting career.

Candy Wallace is the founder and Executive Director of the American Personal and Private Chef Association (APPCA) and Institute (APPCI). Recognized as the leading national authority on the subject, Chef Wallace has been teaching the business of being a personal chef to culinary students for the past eleven years. In 2003, she was awarded the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Award for excellence as Businessperson/Entrepreneurof the Year.

Greg Forte, CEC, CCE, AAC, is the Director of the Utah Culinary Institute at Utah Valley State College. Chef Forte has been teaching culinary arts to students for over eighteen years. He is coauthor of Electric Bread.