Roger Fickenscher
Orca Bay recently welcomed a new Director of Product Development, Roger
Fickenscher. Roger has extensive experience as a corporate research
chef and product development expert, and will be introducing new
products and improving existing items on Orca Bay’s expanding list of
offerings in the months to come. Roger says, “Every meal we eat feeds
us spiritually as well as physically”, and his passion for the
aesthetic and “sacred” side of food is evident watching him cook and
serve up his favorite recipes and new creations.
Roger’s story
starts at Penn State where he majored in English, then landed a job in
the campus hotel as a chef. Bitten by the cooking bug, he continued on
to study Culinary Arts at Johnson and Wales University. He started his
R&D career as Corporate Executive Chef at Friendly’s Restaurants.
There Roger introduced the now-famous Cone Head Sundae, a line of ice
cream pies and cakes, dinner entrées and lunch platters and many other
items.
After 18 years, Roger and his family uprooted from the
East coast for an opportunity as Product Developer at Seattle’s
Starbucks Coffee Co. in 1999. There he introduced Starbuck’s cold lunch
program and also the sandwich breakfast concept, both enormous
successes that have been incorporated into many Starbuck¹s nationwide.
Roger then had a brief stint with Dream Dinners, a web-based “meal
assembly” company here in Washington state.
Roger is now a
welcomed addition to the Orca Bay family. We’re definitely looking
forward to his soul-connecting seafood creations in the time to come,
and when they hit the shelves, we know you will as well.
Bio
tidbit: Roger is a self-proclaimed “hobby baker” and still works with a
sourdough starter dough or “mother sponge” that he started in 1983.
