Fueling Future Menu Moves

Chef “Jay Z” Ziobrowski, CEC, corporate R&D chef for Morrison Healthcare, is a seasoned veteran of Kitchen Collaborative, the menu ideation program created in 2020 by Summit F&B in partnership with Flavor & The Menu. When the call for chef participants for the 2026 iteration was announced in late December 2025, he didn’t hesitate to throw his hat in the ring.

“I love Kitchen Collaborative. It’s a project that makes me think and taps chef wisdom and everything I’ve learned,” says Ziobrowski. “With each concept, I want to balance elements, bend the rules, hit all the trends and create not necessarily the ‘next’ thing, but something that makes others think, ‘That’s cool.’”

Dorene Mills, corporate chef, Hannaford Supermarkets, and Jess Bograd, senior director culinary, City Barbeque, are similarly hopeful that their names will rise to the top of a final list of 100 chefs and menu developers from high-volume foodservice brands who will be invited to develop innovation-forward menu concepts inspired by products from 12 sponsor organizations. Winning ideas will earn their creators a memorable grand prize: a culinary expedition to Mendoza, Argentina, in fall 2026.

FOR LOVE OF THE GAME

The prize is an undeniable incentive, but it’s far from the sole motivation for these chefs, who are eager and ready to invest hours of personal time and effort in developing singularly craveable culinary concepts.

“If selected again this year, the challenge for me will be targeting a difference audience, creating recipes that are not necessarily in my wheelhouse,” says Mills. “As a corporate chef for a grocery chain, my objective typically is to make recipes that shopping customers can easily create at home. So, when I saw the concepts that won in 2025, I realized that I have a different challenge to aim for this time. I’m always trying to see what else I can bring to my role. If I win a competition that I enter on my own, that’s a big badge of honor to wear on my chef coat.”

Bograd relishes the opportunity to shed the familiar constrictions she needs to apply in developing menu items for her brand. “The prize is amazing—I mean, who wouldn’t want to win a culinary trip of a lifetime? But my motivator truly is to continue to challenge myself,” she says. “Sometimes you get stuck in the day-to-day sameness of the guardrails that guide the innovation you can create at work. Kitchen Collaborative is a fun way to think outside of the box and ignite that creative side. It allows me to get out of my comfort zone and really test myself as a chef. ”

Ziobrowski leans into the opportunity inherent in the name of the program. “For me, it’s really about the collaboration and the networking. Once I get the sponsored products, I’m calling up other chefs: ‘What are you making that excites you right now? What are you doing? What would you do with, say, watermelon, dude?’ It’s not that I’m going to steal ideas, but thinking about how I might spin it,” he says. “The project gets me reaching out to people I probably haven’t talked to in a while. And then I’m looking at Tik Toks and social posts and getting inspiration there. I really enjoy networking around ideas.”

SATISFACTION, SUCCESS, STRATEGY

With such rewards in mind, these chefs find personal satisfaction in the thrill of the craft. Each can point to memorable dishes they created or products they discovered in past challenges. Bograd recollects a honey-roasted butternut squash pasta recipe she created for Kitchen Collaborative in 2024. “Ooh, I really liked that one and still make it today. It includes a bacon-honey-mustard vinaigrette that I use on other dishes, too,” she says.

If selected for the 2026 program, “I think I’d work toward more mashups of products—pairings of unexpected ingredients in a thought-provoking way,” Bograd muses. “I’d also like to work in a few more savory concepts for a range of dining occasions.”

For the 2025 competition, Mills submitted nearly two dozen concepts! “I wanted to use every item we received in different ways. I also wanted to hit on different meal categories,” she explains. “It was really a fun time to be in my kitchen, trying to push the envelope. It’s such pure enjoyment figuring out new menu items and just creating.”

Especially memorable for Mills were successful applications featuring less-familiar products. For example, she found she loved playing with hoisin sauce in a street corn concept, as well as a side of Brussels sprouts and dried cranberries. “Now, hoisin sauce is a staple in my house,” she says. Mills is also proud of a lemongrass sugar cookie with a Sriracha glaze and a cookie milk inspired by current cereal milk cocktail trends.

Ziobrowski finds the most gratifying part of the process to be when he actually submits the entry. “I’m such a procrastinator. But when it’s solidified, and I know it’s ready? That’s a great feeling.” One of his favorite Kitchen Collaborative submissions was a riff on the very first dish he created in culinary school. “The Garlicky Umami Croissant-Tadas has such a great origin story and then I loved bringing it back to life, incorporating new ingredients,” he recounts.

Whether or not he’s selected to take part in Kitchen Collaborative 2026, Ziobrowski has one wish: “I hope they don’t ever get rid of it. It’s such a great program for the sponsors and the chefs.”

The sponsors of Kitchen Collaborative 2026 are: Barilla for Professionals, BelGioioso, Damascus Bakeries, Good Foods, Kikkoman, King & Prince Seafood, Lee Kum Kee, Lentils.org, National Watermelon Promotion Board, Otis Spunkmeyer, SupHerb Farms and Thomas Foods.

Coming Up: Winners of the 2025 Kitchen Collaborative will share reflections on their recent adventures in Dubai and Flavor & The Menu will preview some of the early 2026 concept entries as they are submitted.