Since signing a deal to have Aramark supply food to athletes and media at the Olympics, Aramark’s Marc Bruno has traveled to Beijing 25 times to prepare the company for its largest undertaking at an Olympics since it first got involved 40 years ago. Today, the president of stadiums and arenas, sports and entertainment, oversees a staff of 7,000 employees at the Olympics who serve as many as 10,000 meals a day. He sat down with SportsBusiness Journal staff writer Tripp Mickle to talk about that effort.

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Where are you serving food here at the Olympics?
Bruno: There are three big buckets of food service at the Beijing Olympics. There’s food service in the Olympic Village, food service for the media, and food service or catering at the venues. We’re doing all of the food service in the athlete village and in the International Broadcast Center and the Main Press Center. Essentially, concessions at venues were set aside for local Chinese companies.

How would you describe the state of the concessionaire business in China?
Bruno: It’s relatively in its infancy. There aren’t a tremendous amount of stadiums with food service. I can’t describe a state today, but the potential for the future is large. The Beijing Olympics is really going to be a launching pad for China and a vehicle for the future.

Is this a bottom-line revenue generator for Aramark?
Bruno: The Olympics are a unique event. This is our 14th. We started in Mexico City in 1968. We’ve viewed it as the ultimate challenge to serve an event of this magnitude. It’s great for morale within our company. We bring chefs and managers in from a dozen countries and this is a great incentive for our finest chefs and managers. About 35 percent are Olympic veterans. It is not a profit-making venture. It’s not a money-losing venture. We really do it for the challenge and to build our resume and legacy going forward.

Is it to keep competitors out?
Bruno: Yes. We’ve done 14, which is a competitive advantage. To some degree, it’s not only an opportunity to do those things but also continue to build that legacy.

What have been the biggest challenges?
Bruno: Trying to manage the supply chain. China is an advanced and large country, but it doesn’t have a very stable supply chain. Things aren’t available in China. We worked for several years to figure out where products should come from. Should they be imported? Additionally, we tried to grow them locally. Also food safety. It’s paramount to our organization and paramount to the Chinese government that the food is without question.

How are they monitoring safety?
Bruno: The IOC and BOCOG are testing all of the food for doping implications for the first time. It’s one thing to monitor it all the way from the farm to the plate, but in addition to that it has to be tested for doping implications. It’s a good thing, and it’s more than just, “Don’t put poppy seeds on anything.” That’s been new to us. It’s delayed the product. Now it takes three to five days to test products for doping. It also shortens the amount of fresh product you can get straight from the farm to the shelf.

What’s an example of something you couldn’t get on the supply chain that you can get with ease in the U.S.?
Bruno: The other challenge is there are a lot of products that aren’t made in this country or grown here. Basil is not something they grow here. We had to teach farmers how to grow basil to have fresh herbs. We also had to import products. To get authentic, kimchi has to come from Korea. It’s basically a spicy, pickled cabbage. They eat it around the clock as a staple item. We go through 18,000 pounds of kimchi. It’s a very popular product.

How else is this Olympics different?
Bruno: Each Games comes with its own challenges. For example, in Atlanta, the issue was labor. It was difficult to get experienced people for a short time frame while everyone else was out there trying to get staff at the same time. Here in China, labor wasn’t an issue. We were able to contract out. (But) the supply chain is very difficult. There’s no such thing as a super-distributor who could fill a 40-foot truck and deliver things to you. They don’t have refrigeration trucks here. You would think they would, but they don’t. They never required a supply chain with that kind of sophistication.

How do you envision things like that changing?
Bruno: One of the beauties of having this kind of project in a city like Beijing is to help develop a legacy for the city and figure out a way to increase the standards to make them more of an international city. We built a warehouse that is huge with freezers, coolers, dry storage. We convinced companies to build the facilities and to invest in trucks and invest in facilities because after the Games they’re going to want to make sure they have these modern facilities to help grow the infrastructure in Beijing. That’s a great thing to be a part of.

What does this do for Aramark long term in China?
Bruno: We have a company here, Aramark China, that’s a food facilities company, janitorial. It was started through acquisition. That business is relatively small compared to the size of the marketplace in China. Our intent is to not only grow that facility, but clearly the Olympics allow us to understand the marketplace and test it for the future. Setting up a supply chain, that’s a tremendous advantage for us. Having worked with 6,500 staff people, we’ve now worked with them and they know us.