That’s sort of crazy, right? Those of you who have been reading for a long time know I’m not shy about taking pictures of trash and posting them. I think waste is fascinating. But in this case the story isn’t about where those tasting spoons are going but rather where they’ve been.

We taste a lot at Clover. So much in fact that the other day when we did an analysis of our packaging spend almost 1/5th of our total packaging spend is sampling. That includes behind the counter, as we’re trying to perfect a recipe, as well as in front of the counter, sharing the latest creation with customers.

Chefs at fine dining restaurants used to carry a spoon around, but that’s been mostly replaced due to the fact that it isn’t very sanitary. Some places hold metal tasting spoons in water with bleach or some other sanitizer. We just use spoons. At the restaurants you will see these neat little paper spoons we found not long ago. In the kitchen they are still using plastic or compostable spoons.

By the way, you’re all invited to our food development meetings. You can bring a food idea you would like to champion, it might find its way onto the Clover menu. Or you can just drop in to say hi and see what we’re up to. It’s completely open:

Clover Food Dev
Tuesdays, 3 – 4pm
Clover HUB (1075 Cambridge St.)