VOL. 6 NO. 1, 2022 | HOSPITALITY INSIGHTS | PAGE 3 POTS and PANdemic: Chef wellbeing amidst COVID-19 Richard N.S. Robinson, Shelagh K. Mooney, Matthew L. Brenner, and Tin Doan Richard Robinson is an associate professor at the University of Queensland. His research focus is on sustainable hospitality and tourism workforce studies, and the occupational experiences of chefs. Shelagh Mooney is an associate professor at the School of Hospitality and Tourism at AUT. Her research focuses on ethical leadership for a sustainable hospitality and tourism workforce. As most developed nations emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic period, amid exceptionally high hospitality labour shortages, it is timely and important to understand the state of chefs and cooks’ mental health and wellbeing (MH&W) and individual and organisational outcomes of the pandemic. A survey (pending publication) by this article’s authors, of Australasian chefs during late-2021/early-2022, aimed to provide insights into these two interlinked factors. Chefs’ working conditions have been closely examined for many decades, yet only a few studies have considered their MH&W [1]. Nonetheless, there are indications in the literature that chefs can be vulnerable to harm due to negative workplace experiences, for example, by working in fear [2], enduring wage theft [3], and participating in habitual drug and alcohol abuse [4]. An unsettling piece of Australian research revealed that chefs are significantly more likely to commit suicide than are those in the general population [5], highlighting serious risks if their working conditions, and consequential triggers for harm, continue to be neglected by industry and policy makers. Administered amid COVID conditions in late 2021 and early 2022, the survey yielded 260 usable responses from chefs in Australia, New Zealand, and Pacifica nations. The sample’s mean age was 40 and comprised 69% men. The average occupational tenure was over 21 years, and 42% were not working in their home country. Surprisingly, given the skills and labour shortages, 15% of the sample were not working at all. A third were contingently employed, with the mean of their weekly hours at 48, and nearly 25% reported having no work breaks on shift. Disturbingly, given the health and safety protocols around COVID-19, 75% of the sample reported working while ill, on average, for nearly nine days per year. In terms of drug and alcohol abuse, over 15% of the sample consumed alcohol five or more days weekly, with nearly 10% consuming hard drugs (e.g., “LSD, cocaine, heroin and/or ecstasy”). In terms of MH&W, the sample reported* high levels of physical exhaustion (e.g., “tired be fore starting work,” “exhausted at work,” and mental fatigue (e.g., “emotionally drained” and “becoming disconnected”). Workplace consequences included counterproductive workplace behaviours such as deviance [6] with a mean of 1.43**. Inferentially, psychological distress was positively and significantly