Mark Freeman's foodservice revolution

Back in high school, Mark Freeman took a job washing dishes in a restaurant—a move made simply to earn extra money but one that turned out to have a lasting impact on his life and career.

“It got in my blood,” he says. “The energy around the restaurant space had such an exciting appeal.”

Fast forward 50 years and this excitement has not abated. It’s obvious as Freeman talks about his newest role as global strategic foodservice manager for the Ford Motor Co.—a position he assumed just in October. And that passion shines through when he describes his previous job as senior manager of global employee services for Microsoft Corp., where during his 13-year tenure, he revolutionized how and what the company’s 65,000 employees eat every day.

“Food can play a very important part in hiring and retaining the best and brightest employees,” Freeman says. His success in creating a vibrant dining culture at Microsoft caught the attention of Ford, a company that is realizing the benefits and short-term gains an elevated foodservice program can provide.

But how did that teenage dishwasher grow up to be in charge of feeding 80,000 employees at one of America’s largest car companies? Freeman’s resume tells part of the story, with his commitment to sustainability, food quality, technology and the intersection of all three filling out the plot.

From college to corporate

The dishwashing job ignited Freeman’s desire to go to hotel and restaurant school at Washington State University. While there, he worked in a pizza restaurant. Thinking “I can get rich making pizzas,” he quit college to take over a pizza franchise. When the money didn’t come pouring in, Freeman returned to school and got a business degree, which led to a job in foodservice at Evergreen State College.

During his 26 years in college dining, both Freeman and foodservice started going through some changes that would prove to have a significant effect on the industry. Contract companies consolidated or were sold, with Evergreen going from Saga to Marriott to Sodexo as its providers.

Food was changing too, slowly moving toward more scratch cooking. Meanwhile, Freeman’s family was growing, and he started looking at the better work-life balance in the business and industry sector. He was offered a job in corporate dining at American Express in Salt Lake City and “I felt like I died and went to heaven … cooking just two meals a day,” he says.

The AmEx gig led to a corporate dining position at Hewlett-Packard in Oregon, providing Freeman with a lot of global experience, he says. That, coupled with his firsthand knowledge of college-age diners and the boom in technology, resulted in his “dream job” at  Microsoft.

The changemaker 

When Freeman arrived at Microsoft in 2005, a commitment to food quality was in his DNA, but this new position allowed him to round out his mission with an equal commitment to sustainability and technology. Realizing the importance of local sourcing and clean food to Microsoft’s young employees, he launched an initiative called the Ingredient Revolution, fully supported by Compass, the company’s foodservice provider. Through this initiative, Freeman not only partnered with area farmers and producers, but he also pioneered a program to educate the Microsoft community about where that food was coming from and how it was grown.

On a low-tech level, “I took my chefs to the farms and they got their fingers in the dirt,” he says. Videos were shot and digitized to display on screens in the dining venues so customers could learn at lunch. But being at Microsoft gave Freeman the ability to take the technology up a level or two.

The company installed bluetooth beacons under service counters, and when customers place their smartphones under the counter, they bring up all the particulars about the food being served. Those who want more information can push a button, and the farmer or fisherman appears, talking about how the food is harvested, the fish is caught, etc.

Microsoft was one of the first in the industry to use cashierless kiosks, and Freeman capitalized on the data.

“We took the purchase and nutritional data off the POS and combined it with other data, such as traffic, weather, moon phases, etc. This led us to the discovery that comfort food sells better when it’s hot outside—not in the winter,” he says. Additionally, the data helped predict with 90% accuracy how many people would come into the cafes. “When the number gets high enough, we can contract with our farmers to plant more tomatoes, for example, because we would be able to purchase them,” Freeman says.

Looking ahead

Because Freeman had only been at Ford for a few weeks at the time of this interview, he wasn’t ready to pin down his future foodservice plans at the company. But he is ready “to step into this new adventure,” he says. And his past experiences have given him a unique perspective on the general state of the industry and the challenges ahead.

Food freshness, quality, nutrition and sustainability continue to be priorities, he says, with even greater attention paid to food waste and the carbon footprint. At Microsoft, he worked to repurpose waste product into fuel and source food from nearby Native American farmers, reducing food miles. These initiatives are just a small way to meet the future food waste and distribution challenges. And there’s lots going on with technology in farming, he adds.

Facial recognition was introduced at Microsoft during Freeman’s tenure, but “we wanted to give people the opportunity to opt out, and we weren’t ready, tech-wise,” he says. Now that phones and computers offer enhanced security, this technology can be used more, as is now happening at Microsoft. “Once people opt in, we can access data on their phone and connect to their feelings … and see how those feelings will influence what they buy and eat,” Freeman believes. “This will allow us to do predictive analysis.”

When asked what may be happening in five years, Freeman admitted that’s a long time out and things are changing so fast. However, he does predict a scattered workforce with many employees working remotely and fewer bodies on-site. “With workers not all in the same place, how do we get them food?” he asks. There’s a good possibility that delivery by robots, drones and driverless cars will ramp up, he adds.

That said, there’s always room for some old-school thinking as technology continues to impact the foodservice industry.

“Breaking bread together … sitting across the table and socializing … that’s still going to be very important,” Freeman believes.