Seeing my mother working long hours as a cook, but always with a big smile on her face, was my inspiration to follow a culinary path, but I didn’t realise this straight away.
In fact, I discovered my love for cooking by chance when I started to work at a restaurant in my town, and step by step I fell in love with this profession. In the end, it became MY profession.
I spent several years travelling throughout Spain and abroad, learning everything I could about food, ingredients, and how to use them in recipes, I trained at La Laguna de Baeza, a prestigious Andalusian school and worked in different restaurants, hotels and even cruise ships across various cities over the following 15 years.
Then I started to look for a company where I could consolidate my career, with a chance to grow professionally but also greater balance between my personal and professional life. As soon as I found Sodexo, I knew it was the right fit. I was impressed by the commitment to equality, promotion of female talent and opportunities for professional development.
5000 menus a day
I joined Sodexo as a chef at one of the main Sodexo clients in Spain, managing 5 restaurants with over 2,500 daily menus, with the support of a fantastic team. A year and a half later, I became production manager at the same site, managing the food offer for the 9 restaurants (over 5,000 daily menus). Today I still feel (and I will always be) very proud of what we achieved, thanks to my team. Whilst in this role I travelled to southern United States, sharing Spanish gastronomy with local Sodexo colleagues and represented Spain at a company-wide conference in the UK.
In 2019 I started my current position as a Food Efficiency Manager for Sodexo’s business and industry segment in Spain. I am really enjoying working with colleagues from countries around the world to introduce new food concepts which meet the ever-changing needs of our guests.
Food is not just my passion, it has become my life
Watch the video to hear what I enjoy most about my current role, the secret of a successful culinary career and my signature dish.
It's not the destination, it’s the journey
Gender diversity is something which should be seen across every area and at all levels in a company. There is always more which can be done to train teams and promote equality though gender balanced teams.
A culinary environment can be very hierarchical and disciplined so something I’ve worked hard on over the years is developing my empathy. I always try to put myself in someone else’s shoes.
I am also a real perfectionist, so failure is my biggest fear. However, I believe that not being afraid of failure helps you develop faster, so I’ve always pushed myself to try to overcome this fear.
To anyone wishing to pursue a culinary career I say; be empathetic, don’t be afraid to fail and enjoy the journey.
Find out more about a career at Sodexo!
This article was created by Mayte Cabello, Food Efficiency Manager, Sodexo Spain
