Now Chang, 33, is the Foodland chain's first corporate chef, and admits he didn't realize how progressive that Mainland grocer was. Or what challenging fun it could be to devise a culinary program for a supermarket — the one kind of store that touches most people's lives on an almost daily basis.

He's seen how lives and eating patterns have changed, with so much less time for cooking at home. He recalls not being able to find the ingredients he wanted when he would cook at home; he'd have to take food home from his restaurant kitchen.

Now, he's delighted to be in on the ground floor of a movement that's long been in place on the Mainland — retooling the supermarket of the 21st century.

Right now, he admitted, the idea of a classically trained chef in a supermarket seems, at least, odd.

Here's a guy who worked for three years in a restaurant, the Eiffel Tower at the Paris, Las Vegas, that did 500 meals a night with checks averaging $120 (not including liquor), a place where it wasn't unusual to serve entire globes of foie gras or a couple of pounds of beluga caviar. What's he doing in a galley-size space tucked behind the jelly doughnuts and apple crullers?

He quietly joined the company a year ago and since has been researching ideas that are only now coming to fruition. He, Wall and senior department directors spent two intensive weeks visiting more than 100 supermarkets and retail shops in Arizona and California. He traded ideas with others within the Foodland organization — buyers for health foods, gourmet foods, produce, wine and meats and the R. Field specialty-shop-within-a-shop. And he has hired three chefs, with a fourth set to come on board soon and others in reserve.

The most visible result is the reborn deli at the Foodland Beretania store, where the usual sandwich meats and pre-fab salads have made room for 12 feet of roasted pork tenderloin with pineapple chutney, salmon in sweet red chili sauce, 'ahi cakes with Asian remoulade, wild rice pilaf and crisp Waialua asparagus with mushrooms and sesame seeds — plus another 20 or 30 house-made takeout dishes. The operation is just 13 days old today; it's the prototype for a program that will be expanded to some other Foodland stores.

"People come and they just stand here and stare," said Chang.

The past six months have been spent experimenting. The chefs had to identify popular dishes, but also figure out what was the minimum amount they could make so that the dishes didn't dry out or lose their crispness.

"We all came from an ˆ-la-minute background and we had to adjust to advance cooking for a cold environment," Chang said.

They've learned to undercook dishes just a bit, so the food is properly finished when the customer reheats it at home.

A pastry case includes customary doughnuts and Danish, and a new line of French-style pastries, purchased frozen, then proofed and baked in-house, as are the La Brea breads and a new Tutu's line of specialty breads Chang brought in from California.

An earlier innovation, a sushi bar complete with chef, occupies one corner.

But another portion of the case still contains the usual array of deep-fried stuff, and there are still deli sandwiches and pre-packed bentos.

This is in keeping with the stores' goal of keeping most of the product lines people are used to while squeezing in new offerings however possible.

Wall told Chang she didn't want him to throw out the hamburger for dry-aged beef; it was important to keep the store's conventional customer base. But she did want to capture two other types of shoppers: health/whole/natural/organic and gourmet/specialty/quality/imported foods.

Chang has been part of a project to revamp the wine department, reclassifying wines by flavor profile rather than varietal or country of origin. And in the produce department, they've brought in some exclusive local lines and become willing to accept small shipments of seasonal produce. In seafood, there is more whole fish. In meats, choice Black Angus beef from California-based Harris Ranch has been added; the cattle are grain-fed, but without pesticides or mass feeding of antibiotics.

Space — floor space, shelf space, space for equipment and people — is a constant challenge in the supermarket industry, particularly in urban Honolulu, where real estate is so expensive. Sophisticated tracking of buying patterns — called "category analysis" in the business — helps corporate buyers decide which products go and which stay, but perhaps with only one "face" (line of products facing outward on the shelf) rather than two or three.

Chang has had to wedge his new operations in amongst those that already existed. Back in November, when they were experimenting with the first dozen or so dishes a day, Beretania sous chef Jason Ito — who joined Foodland from the Hilton Hawaiian Village — had to make do with a two-burner cooktop on a 110-volt line. Now Ito and chef Thomas Ho are reveling in about 12 whole feet of prep space: a four-burner stove, a flat-top griddle and six whole feet of countertop wedged into sort of hallway between the deli kitchen and the bakery area. They do their barbecuing outside.

Pastry chef Judy Aveiro, working elbow to elbow with one woman who is frosting a cake and another who is pouring batter into shallow pans, seemed unfazed by the compact conditions and constant need to shift things around to get enough room in which to work. She was cheerfully intent on perfecting her new chocolate cheesecake brownies.

One benefit of the deli cooking operation is cross-merchandising: Everything is made from food found elsewhere in the store. Ito does cooking demos with wine matching every Friday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Chang says he thinks one day they'll laugh at these humble beginnings, and chefs will be as integral to supermarket operations as produce managers.