LP Associate Gets a ‘Pizza the Action’ in Offutt Hunt Brothers Kitchen
The Loss Prevention team at the Offutt Air Force Base Exchange won a fourth-quarter 2021 contest for hosting a community safety event. The prize was pretty big for a team that that consists of only two associates.
Samantha Byrne, Loss Prevention manager at the Offutt Air Force Base Exchange, says she learned about Hunt Brothers Pizza safety protocols when she made pies for a pizza party that she threw for the BX.
“We won a gift card for $150 for a pizza party,” said Samantha Byrne, Offutt’s LP manager. “A pizza party for just two of us was a lot, so we gave back to the store and had a safety pizza party for everyone.”
Not only that, but Byrne stepped into the kitchen at Hunt Brothers Pizza and made pizzas. She even got some safety tips.
“I worked with Dani Watson, the store manager at the mini mall, and with one of the shift managers, Danyel Fujikawa, and they gave me a crash course in Hunt Brothers prep,” Byrne said. “You have to wash your hands for 30 seconds with soap and water, and I learned how to put the pizza in the oven without burning myself.”
Watson added that knife safety is also involved, because knives are used to open packages and cut toppings. She said Byrne did very well, with help from Fujikawa. “They tag-teamed it, and between the two of them, they made all the pizzas,” Watson said.
Byrne not only got firsthand experience with Hunt Brothers safety, she also learned some about the company’s pizzas.
“They told me how to prepare the toppings each pizza needs,” Byrne said. “For example, 36 pepperonis go on a single-topping pizza, but if it’s more than one topping, it’s 18 pepperonis. That goes into your food costs. If you’re not putting the right amount of toppings on, it’s going to cost more in the long run.”
But some pizzas had special toppings.
“We had been talking about doing different things with the pizza” Watson said. “We thought it would be fun to spell ‘safety’ across the pizzas so people knew what they were for.”
Byrne, who has been with the Exchange since December 2008 and says she hadn’t worked in the food industry since she was 16, wanted to include as much as the Offutt Exchange as she could.
“We have the Capehart Express,” she said. “I brought them a pizza. I gave the mini-mall team two pizzas. And then I hit the main store and included the food court, and said, ‘Hey, you guys want to come back? It’s a pizza party.’ It was all to promote safety locally.”
Offutt Pizza Party pies spell out “Safety” (top row) and “LP” for Loss Prevention.
