Street-fighting may be entertainment in some circles – Black Friday, anyone? – but for Courtney Bonning, Thursday night's battle will be in a different arena.
At 10 p.m. Thanksgiving, the owner of Bonbon Pastry & Cafe faces her showdown in the “Sweet Genius” kitchen on Food Network. She'll be competing with three other contenders for the evening's honors, plus a chance to win a $10,000 cash prize.
Bonning, who lives in Fairview Park and operates the popular shop in Ohio City, admits that initially her view of the competition was tad skeptical. She quick became aware of how vigorous the challenge would be.
“It's definitely legit,” says Bonning, who lives in Fairview Park. “You have to make your way through the shooting, and you really don't know what's in store for you. I went in having recipes and ratios in my head, and tried to be prepared for whatever they'd throw [at me]. It's mentally challenging, mostly.”
So was working with chef Ron Ben-Israel, host of the show and an internationally recognized cake decorator. If you haven't watched “Sweet Genius,” you've missed one of the culinary world's iciest personalities, at least on camera. His demeanor, sort of an imperious taskmaster, can be . . . daunting.
“During shooting he will, like, let his guard down a little bit and talk with you – say, about tools you may or may not be familiar with,” she says. “ He does maintain a stoic kind of nature, and he is a chef and so there's a certain line of command. But he's also actually very helpful and warm. He smiles, and there is a dialogue with him.”
Bonning, who last year shared honors and a $10,000 prize on the network's “Cupcake Wars,” says that “Sweet Genius” was “awesome to be in.
“They put you in a room with every possible toy a pastry chef would want to play with – every chocolate tempering station and sugar-pulling station, and molds, and dragees . . . They give you this opportunity, admittedly on-the-fly – it's why people go into this field in thhe first place. Really, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose. Having the experience itself is just awesome.”
A publicist representing Food Network was on hand during our conversation, chiefly to make sure Bonning didn't tip her hand about the show's outcome. You'll have to wait for show's airing.
The companies that sent their manufacturing to foreign countries soon discovered there were frustrations and costs they never anticipated. They found that differences in language made communicating product specifications and manufacturing instructions to their offshored sources difficult. They learned that cultural differences made it difficult to motivate the foreign companies to respond quickly to their needs. Graft — or payment under the table — was often necessary to break logjams such as finding lost parts, getting a higher priority in a production schedule, or releasing shipments. Conference calls to deal with these issues would have to be scheduled across different time zones, further frustrating the offshoring company.
When issues could not be solved over the phone, visits abroad became necessary, incurring more costs and tying up valuable human resources. Some companies decided to make periodic overseas visits to keep things under control or to put a full-time company representative on site. The costs were just beginning to expose themselves. When production or quality assurance steps were not followed, products could end up at the parent company requiring rework. Being compensated for the reworking of defective products was unlikely.
The list of offshoring problems and resulting costs continued. Purchasing offshored goods usually began with a prepayment. Order quantities were not what was needed, but rather based on what a shipping container would hold. Add a production lead-time of four weeks and a shipping time of another four weeks — all in addition to the massive order quantities — and the result was products, which would not sell for many more weeks, that required storage and inventorying. There was a constant threat of obsolescence and spoilage.
Cash flow slowed to a snail’s pace, especially with 30-day net terms to customers. Costs escalated and profits shrunk. But there’s more! Offshored countries are notorious for pirating the intellectual property U.S. companies give them to make their products. Suing the foreign source typically is ineffective because of weak or nonexistent judicial support in the foreign country.
Offshoring has consequences for the U.S. as well. The flight of manufacturing jobs offshore has meant record unemployment, reduced gross national product and a dwindling tax base, with less than half of Americans paying federal income taxes. In some cases, whole towns have struggled because of offshoring, such as Hershey, PA, where all Hershey chocolate used to be made.
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