On any given day, an American soldier in Iraq will sit down to a meal of wild salmon with lemon herb sauce. A businessman attending a conference in Vegas will be served chicken with herbes de Provence and morel sauce. A first-class passenger traveling to Boston on the Acela train will tuck into lamb shanks with rosemary and mint sauce. And a busy mom will pick up marinated grilled chicken from the local supermarket deli.
    None of them will have any idea that their meal was prepared hundreds or even thousands of miles away, or that it was cooked using cutting-edge sous-vide technology, then flash frozen and shipped to their location. Nor would they likely recognize the name of the supplier: Cuisine Solutions. But thanks to extensive media coverage of top U.S. chefs—Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Michel Richard, Charlie Trotter—who are using sous vide in their own kitchens, the company is slowly gaining public recognition. All of which should give an additional boost to Cuisine Solutions’ retail line, now poised to become its most high-profile ven-ture to date.
    Based in Alexandria, Virginia, Cuisine Solutions was founded in 1990 by Stanislas Vilgrain, who was previously involved in Vie de France, a French bakery chain started by his family. “We had recently added sous-vide items so that we could offer a complete menu—bread as well as pastries and entrées,” he relates. “When the board decided to sell the bakeries, we decided to focus entirely on sous vide, supplying high-quality, value-added products to the food service industry.”
    Key to making the concept reality was hiring scientist Bruno Goussault, who had been working on this technology since 1970, notably teaming up with three-star chef Joël Robuchon to create sous-vide meals for first-class TGV passengers. Along with Georges Pralus, who worked with the Troisgros brothers in Roanne, Goussault is credited with making sous vide one of the most sophisticated—and hottest—trends in international culinary circles.
    The term is French for “vacuum-packed,” but it is to 1960s “boil-in-a-bag” what the iMac is to mainframes. There’s still plastic wrap and water, to be sure, but that’s where the comparison ends.
    Take the wild salmon with lemon herb sauce, one of the company’s signature dishes. First the fish is seared, then cooled. Next it is vacuum-sealed in a plastic pouch with the sauce, which infuses the fish with flavor. Now is when Goussault’s science comes into play: The salmon is slow-cooked in a vat of water at a precise temperature for a precise amount of time. Goussault will not reveal the exact temperature or time for any dish—after all, it takes him hundreds of experiments to get the results he wants—but he will say that even one degree more or less can change texture and taste. Equally critical is cooling, which is typically done in stages to obtain the desired results. Only then is the dish frozen and packed for shipping.
    “Because sous vide involves cooking at low temperatures, there is no loss of natural juices,” explains Vilgrain. “That’s why our products have 10 to 15 percent more moisture than conventionally cooked items. This technique also produces very consistent results. Because it is so precise, we know that every portion will be identical, whether it is the first one you serve or the 500th.”
    Initially, Cuisine Solutions targeted airlines and hotels, both of which appreciated the ability to serve quality items sans preservatives to large numbers of people, without the need for considerable personnel or prep space. Then came 9/11. “Airlines and hotels were especially hard hit,” says Vilgrain. “We lost 50 percent of our business virtually overnight.” He knew he had to diversify, but how? “If you remember, back then people thought that there would be more attacks, and there was a lot of talk about cocooning. So we decided to launch a retail line. We also began working with the U.S. military.”
    Within three years, Vilgrain had turned the company around; it now has operations in Chile, France and Virginia, and produces 250,000 pounds of food a day for hotels, airlines, trains, national restaurant chains, the military and retail outlets. His success at overcoming setbacks was among the qualities that earned him Ernst & Young’s 2007 “Entrepreneur of the Year” award for the Greater Washington Area.
    While diversifying, Vilgrain took Goussault’s advice and allowed the scientist—who had an exclusive agreement with Cuisine Solutions—to train chefs across the country and around the world in sous-vide techniques. Not only has this created yet another revenue stream, it has set off a revolution of sorts in these highbrow kitchens. In a 2005 New York Times Magazine article, Amanda Hesser said that Goussault’s impact on cooking was greater “than anyone since Escoffier.” More articles and TV interviews followed, piquing public interest. Thomas Keller—who trained with Goussault and has collaborated with Cuisine Solutions—is even writing the first sous-vide cookbook.
    Given all the buzz, it is not surprising that Vilgrain is excited about the prospects for his retail line. Yet if you pick up a package of any of Cuisine Solutions’ 30-some entrées, you will not find the words “sous vide” anywhere on the box. “Sous vide is a technique,” says Vilgrain. “What we are interested in is selling a quality product, not the technique used to make it. We offer premium frozen food, dishes that people don’t know how to make or don’t have time to make at home. Two of our most popular items are osso buco and lamb shanks—both would take a home cook hours to prepare.
    “We have set out to create a new category,” he continues. “By definition, that means taking a contrarian approach.” For Vilgrain, that means raising the quality bar for frozen food while at the same time offering good value. “Some of our meals cost consumers no more than they would pay for the raw ingredients.” He also broke from the pack by not including side dishes. “Too often, they become a reason for someone not to buy your product.” Distribution too has been carefully thought out—the brand is carried by Wegmans, Costco and other selected retailers that tend to attract discerning customers.
    So far, the iconoclastic strategy has produced $20 million in annual sales, with 30 percent growth during each of the past three years. “When we pass the $100 million mark, we will have succeeded in creating that new category,” says Vilgrain. “That’s when we’ll consider setting up Picard-type stores.” As recent travelers to France know, he is referring to the purveyor of top-drawer frozen foods that has become as omnipresent in French cities as Starbucks is in America.
    In the meantime, Cuisine Solutions is working on setting up vending cases in wine and liquor stores. Soon, you may be able to pick up a Beef Wellington to go with your Pinot Noir, and not the other way around. “We did this back in the ’80s with our bread,” says Vilgrain. “Everyone thought we were crazy, but it worked!”
Cuisine Solutions’ products are available at some 500 retail outlets nationwide as well as through Peapod in the Washington, DC, and Chicago areas. cuisinesolutions.com