President and Founder of Culinary Econometrics, Ken Goldberg, began his professional life, following graduation from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics, as a policy data analyst in Princeton NJ. His primary task was interpreting SPSS generated reports employed in the study of various public policy initiatives. The numerical analytical skills and meticulous precision utilized as a research assistant would play an important role in Ken’s career shift.
The vibrant Philadelphia restaurant scene of the 1980’s, where several Penn graduates were operating successful restaurants, drew Ken back to the kitchen life he fell in love with on summer vacations. This began a 43-year food service career as chef, pastry chef, entrepreneur, culinary educator, and software content designer. His kitchen positions were with venerated establishments such as Glorious Food, Patisserie Lanciani, Sign of the Dove, and Restaurant Associates, where he was promoted from the catering division to Executive Chef at The American Museum of Natural History.
Wanting to contribute his knowledge to those entering the food service industry, Ken exchanged his knife kit for a laptop and assumed a leadership position with the culinary division of The Art Institute of New York in 1999. As part of a redesign of the restaurant management curriculum with a focus on industry applicable skills he began an analysis of every element of culinary financial management, looking past the old paradigms for the most effective determinants of long-term profitability. This very analysis continues to this day.
In 2004, Ken studied restaurant revenue management with Dr. Sheryl Kimes, the principal researcher in this field, at the Cornell University Hotel School. He also completed executive education courses at New York University and the Culinary Institute of America.
When educational publisher Pearson needed a culinary specialist to work on the design of their recipe management application, Pearson Kitchen Manager in 2011, Ken was the person they turned to. In this role, he designed all the recipe functionality, including recipe costing by food cost percent and gross margin, compound units, and distinct recipe scaling for dry and liquid ingredients. Ken was also responsible for the structure and content of the over 2,500 ingredient database, which contains 18 data fields including default recipe unit, purchase price, NAMP number, multi-step unit conversion, and QuickBooks chart of accounts designation.
Recent writing projects include Introduction to Foodservice and Food Cost Accounting for the ACF and the update of the NRA's Food and Beverage Management.
Other Team Members:
Culinary Econometrics maintains working relationships with industry veterans with backgrounds in clubs and hotels for projects as needed.