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Turn your focus to desserts

May 30, 2011

So what’s the best part of a restaurant menu? Going along with what Mom used to recite, “you have to eat all your vegetables before you get dessert” —  dessert truly is the crowd-pleaser and can be a profit-center if you stay attuned to customer tastes and changing trends.

We all scream for ice cream

A recent Mintel consumer survey (Mintel’s Menu Insights) found most respondents stated ice cream/frozen yogurt as their preferred dessert and baked goods like cake, pie, and cookies came next as “sometimes” preferred.  As ice cream leads as the top choices for consumers, restaurants have responded to its popularity by being the top-offered desserts on restaurant menus. Ice cream, chocolate cake, pie, cheesecake and sundae rank behind ice cream.

Some innovations in ice cream have been twists on flavors like the addition/infusion of herbs (think lavender) and spices. Additionally, shakes offer a new opportunity for restaurants to profit.  Take Hardee’s, who had recently offered Strawberry Banana Smoothie Shake (possibly catering towards breakfast) and also hand-scooped ice-cream malts and shakes (similar shakes also served at Jack in the Box and Sonic).

Small Bites

Bite-sized desserts are gaining popularity as a spin-off of the small plate craze. Mini bites allow people to indulge but feel less-guilty. Cupcakes? Although naturally small, cupcake balls (bite-sized cake balls sometimes served on lollipop sticks) are the newest craze.

Mimi’s Cafe actually offers “Petite Treats,” one trio of mini-desserts includes bread pudding, fresh apple cinnamon crisp, and triple chocolate brownie.

Cake – the classic dessert

Cake still proves as a classic favorite for desserts. Putting a new spin cakes (much like the small cake-balls) is what many restaurants are doing now to attract guests’ taste buds. For example Friendly’s has introduced molten-lava-like cakes, filled with hot fudge and served with ice cream. Cookies and brownies are also increasingly appearing on restaurants’ menus tapping into guests love for warm, baked, chocolaty goodness.

 

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The Secret Ingredient is Salsa

May 23, 2011

Tomatoes, onions, chile and cilantro… all well and good for a salsa, but this versatile, flavorful ingredient can be so much more.

Part sauce, part relish, even part salad, salsa has moved out beyond the standard-issue chip accessory to become a signature-making menu component. Just take a look at the following examples by way of proof.

 

  • Three salsas offered at Dos Caminos, in New York City: Roasted Tomato-Arbol Salsa; Pasilla de Oaxaca Salsa; Tres Chiles Salsa
  • The Blue Room, Boston: Big, Huge, Giant Grilled Shrimp with Scotch Bonnet Salsa
  • McCormick & Schmick’s: Coconut Fried Shrimp with horseradish marmalade and tropical fruit salsa; Mako Shark, blackened, roast corn salsa and fried chili onion rings
  • Down Under, Waves, N.C. :  Down Under Tartlet (Flaky crust filled with sausage and egg, topped with cheese, baked and finished with crab salsa)
  • Pittypat’s Porch, Atlanta: Black-eyed Pea Cakes with Southern peach salsa
  • Métisse French Bistro, New York City: Traditional orange crème brûlée, with rose strawberry salsa, homemade biscuit
  • Tortilla Flats, Soquel, Calif.:  Pollo con Pina y Nopalitos (Grilled chicken strips with fresh pineapple and nopalito salsa, served on a bed of fresh greens)
  • Ubuntu, Napa, Calif.: Bitter Green Beignets with carrot top salsa verde, ‘pac man’ broccoli

 

Carrot top salsa? Yes, indeed. Remembering that salsa is just another word for sauce helps open up the field for all kinds of inspirations, ingredients, utilizations and techniques. It’s also not just for Mexican menus.

 

  • Use your favorite salsa to dress up straightforward proteins such as grilled fish, chicken or pork
  • Add it to vinaigrette dressings to bring added texture and color to salads, or to mayonnaise, sour cream, softened goat cheese, or hummus to create a sandwich condiment or dip
  • Turn a freebie into an item you can charge for by menuing several different salsas with chips and crudités
  • Experiment with different chiles beyond the familiar jalapeno or chipotles; there are a wide variety of fresh and dried chiles, as well as chile pastes and other products, from easy-to-work-with serranos to incendiary habaneros, and more-exotic peppers like Peru’s aji amarillo
  • Remember that salsa represents a great utilization for produce, such as overripe or bruised fruits, a “bumper crop” of zucchini or lots of prime-season tomatoes
  • Speaking of seasonal, salsa is a perfect means for reflecting what’s freshest from the farm at any given time of year
  • Salsa ingredients don’t need to be raw; even standard salsa components like tomatoes, onions and chiles can be smoked, roasted, grilled, charred, pickled and more to bring a different flavor profile and texture to the finished recipe
  • Seafood salsa are becoming more popular, and a great utilization for items like broken shrimp or a batch of crabmeat that needs to be used up quickly; when in doubt, start with a seafood salad recipe and adjust it to create a salsa
  • Take inspiration from ethnic cuisine; for instance, the ingredients in pesto can be more roughly chopped to create a salsa with the fresh tastes of basil and garlic
  • In a similar vein, use the concept of a salsa to make ingredients more accessible to customers; can the Sicilian eggplant relish known as caponata be recast as Sicilian olive and eggplant salsa?
  • Remember to look at contrasting and complementary textures and colors when creating a salsa; you can always add texture with raw vegetables or even nuts
  • Fruit salsas can be used with desserts, especially if the fruits are sweetened, caramelized through roasting, and/or paired with additions like cinnamon or shredded coconut

 

At Synergy Consultants, we can help you develop menu selections to create “WOW” flavors and visual appeal, balanced with targeted food cost, profit contribution and an eye for consistent execution.

 

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Pain at the pump is hurting consumer spending

May 17, 2011

As the price of oil increases so too does the cost of gasoline. Americans are definitely, now more than ever, feeling the pain at the pump and its effect is changing the way consumers are spending. With the national price of gasoline at $4  in our already hurting economy, it becomes a huge factor on the where Americans spend their dollars.

In fact, a recent study by America’s Research Group, is showing a correlation between high gas prices and people spending less on shopping trips, and even groceries. Restaurant owners, listen to this: the study found 53 percent of survey participants stating cutting back on “small luxuries” such as dining out.

With this is mind, it is ever important for restaurant owners to think creatively by offering value that most Americans are seeking, whether it is a discount for certain qualifying purchases, through a loyalty program or even through use of coupons (online and mail). These are just a few tips among many to help restaurants weather out this economic storm. For more assistance, feel free to browse our articles or contact Synergy directly.

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May 2011 Newsletter

May 16, 2011

Greetings!

This month, We’ve got some news for you: If you think that it’s only other restaurants that are your competition, think again. Consumers can buy food that’s ready-to-eat—or nearly so—in all kinds of places these days, from supermarkets and c-stores to local farmers markets. That means you have to work extra hard to set yourself apart.

We’re also taking a look at the rise of the Southern food trend, which we see as an extension of the comfort food trend with a little regional American culinary tradition thrown in.And Karen A. Brennan, our Marketing & Branding Strategy specialist, shares a witty tale of the cobra, to illustrate how successful branding works in the age of social media.

 

To your success,

Dean and Danny


Competition: Look at the Big Picture

By Joan Lang

If you’ve never walked into a big Whole Foods, Byerly’s or other high-end grocery store—to say nothing of a specialty emporium like Mario Batali’s new megaplex Eataly , in New York City—you owe it yourself to do so right now, if only to get the message that competition is coming from every quarter in the food business.

Because it’s not just other restaurants in your segment, concept type or even price point that’s your competition: It’s also grocery stores, specialty food stops, food trucks, farmer’s markets, big box stores and even convenience stores that are vying for the consumer’s mealtime dollar.

Nowadays, it seems like everybody that can is offering fresh foods and prepared, grab-and-go meals. In fact, according to the recent Retailer Meal Solutions Consumer Trend Report from Technomic, respondents reported that they were sourcing prepared meals from a wider range of retail foodservice operations than they were just two years ago, with more than three out of four consumers (77%) purchasing prepared foods from retailers at least once a month. And you’d better believe that this was sometimes to the detriment of restaurants.

• 7-Eleven is ramping up its menu of “signature” food items, like pizza-by-the-slice and Angus beef got dogs, on the way to driving to driving foodservice sales that already exceed 17% of total volume

• Mobile catering—read: food trucks—is now a $5 billion industry; in cities like Portland, Ore., these rolling restaurants have become a real force for the brick-and-mortar industry to contend with

• Former Outback Steakhouse exec David Osterweil has started a company called Fitlife Foods , which provides fully prepared, heat-at-home meals with a better-for-you nutritional profile

• Whole Foods is testing a restaurant concept called Osteria and wine and craft beer bars, with no intention of cannibalizing its robust program of beautiful if pricey ready-to-eat foods for takeout

• So-called “business incubators” like North Market in Columbus are springing up all over the country, giving a leg up to specialty foods entrepreneurs who don’t have the means or the facilities to go it alone

In fact, it might seem that the only type of food business that doesn’t compete with you directly is the one that’s too far away. Oh, wait… there’s also mail order.


The South Rises Again


By Joan Lang

The automobile industry may still be troubled, but the fact that former autoworker-cum-caterer Jamawn Woods won “America’s Next Great Restaurant” with his Soul Daddy concept confirms that Southern regional cuisine is definitely having its moment.

What started as a relatively simple wings-and-waffles menu morphed over the course of the season into more of a healthy Southern comfort theme. Soul Daddy’s opening menu consists of classics like country style ribs, pulled pork, baked chicken and a vegetarian plate that allows customers to pick four side dishes from a list that includes cheese grits, collard greens, sweet potato salad and black-eyed pea salad.

The Southern food trend has been a while in the works, from a boomlet in shrimp and grits (once a rather obscure specialty of the Low Country in South Carolina) on menus to a slew of Southern-inspired restaurants in such Northern cities as New York, Boston, and Chicago. The fact of IHOP having put fried chicken and waffles up as an LTO earlier this year is yet another piece of evidence that Southern food is starting to follow Cajun and Southwestern out into the spotlight.

 

It’s not hard to see why. Southern food is great comfort food: It’s flavorful and fun, and it has a distinctive point of view. It’s also by its very nature low in food costs—pork, chicken, vegetables, starches like cornbread and grits and macaroni and cheese. (Even artisanal grits like those delicious fresh-milled varieties from Anson Mills are relatively inexpensive, not to mention inspiring for chefs who may be looking for an alternative to Italian polenta).

Think of the other delicious and iconic foods that define traditional Southern cuisine: pimento cheese spread; chicken fried steak and fried chicken; sausage gravy and ham; catfish; barbecued meats; fried green tomatoes; red velvet cake; banana pudding; bread pudding. The Southern, touting its “Kickass Bar & Comfort Food” in Chicago, features dozens of bourbons on its Whisk(e)y Menu. Hungry Mother in Cambridge, Massachusetts—which got a Best New Restaurant nod from the Beard Foundation in 2009—can scarcely keep the boiled Virginia peanuts on its menu in stock. And Seersucker , in the hyper-trendy borough of Brooklyn, serves the likes of the $15 Southern Snack Tray (a kind of latter-day relish plate with deviled eggs and pickled okra) and $10 Biscuit Boxes (four biscuits with seasonal jellies and preserves) to resolutely un-ironic hipsters.

Let’s just hope fried chicken livers don’t go the route of blackened redfish, right into virtual extinction.


What Can WE Learn from the Bronx Zoo Cobra?

By Karen A. Brennan

A 20-inch baby cobra escaped from the reptile house of the Bronx Zoo about a month ago and became an instant news story. OK, it was probably a slow news day, being that it preceded Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations and the capture of Bin Laden, but that only half explains why this event became such a widespread story.

The other half of the story is great branding. How did it happen, why did it happen, and what can we learn from it?

When a tongue-in-cheek Twitter feed emerged that gave the cobra a personality and a voice, the cobra became a brand and finally a cyber phenom. The cobra had 200,000 Twitter followers in less than a week. But I would argue that it was less about media and more about brand personality that drove the overnight sensation.

The @BronxZoosCobra feed was written in the voice of the Egyptian cobra—a young, sassy, fun-loving female cobra with a cosmopolitan flair that tweeted up-to-the minute updates that piqued our imaginations, allowing us to project our hopes and dreams on her and imagine what we might do if we were free to experience the “Big Apple.”

• “Holding very still in the snake exhibit at the Museum of Natural History,” she posted on Twitter. “This is gonna be hilarious!”
• “I should take in a Broadway show. Anyone heard anything about this ‘Spiderman’ musical?”
• “Leaving Wall Street. These guys make my skin crawl.”

Well, she was finally found…in the zoo: no adventures, no trip to the top the Empire State Building, no Broadway show, and that might have been the end of the story…except for what happened today. A peacock just escaped from the same Bronx Zoo, and, of course, is tweeting: “The cobra gave me some escape tips.” And so it continues. What ultimately creates resonance, connection and longevity is the power of the idea.

The idea was original, not copycat. The voice seems real, not contrived. The tweets are conversational in tone, not broadcast business messaging. And most importantly, the voice reflects a brand personality that connects on an emotional level.

Not long ago, I worked on a project to develop a personality and “voice” for my client’s social media program. It was smart of them to realize the need for a well-conceived approach to their social media voice by creating a brand personality that could translate to the “voice of the brand” as they engaged in a dialogue with their guests on line.

That’s the secret to successful branding strategy—articulating the brand personality and translating the brand personality to the “voice of the brand,” especially important in this age of social media. This voice connects with consumers in a personal and emotional way, and the connection is what allows the brand to transcend its rational attributes (the cobra was, after all, a venomous snake) and engender loyalty.

Many brands use celebrities to represent their brand personalities—Jeff Bridges for Duracell, Tim Allen for Campbell’s Soup, Queen Latifah for Pizza Hut. As consumers, our radar tells us if they are on-target or off-target. In 2007, Wanda Sykes was selected as the “voice” of Applebee’s, and although I thought she was hilarious, she didn’t quite fit the brand.

The lesson to be learned is the importance of creating a relevant emotional connection to your customers and the discipline of maintaining a consistent authentic voice that reflects the brand personality.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Contact Synergy Consultants if you’d like a free consultation to discuss your branding strategy.


Tip of the Month


By Joan Lang

Interested in the idea of a business incubator (a.k.a.) business accelerator)? These programs, which are designed to accelerate the development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, are sprouting up all over the country, and they’ve been a boon to small specialty food businesses of all types. Often taking the form of shared kitchens, they may also give hopefuls access to other resources such as marketing and administrative services. Here are a few websites to get you started.


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Demographics Drive the Business

May 11, 2011

You don’t necessarily need to see census data to know that the profile of the “typical consumer” has changed over the past 10 years. But the data now being released on 2010 population, race and ethnicity (economic and household demographic data will be arriving later in May and June) does reveal significant changes since the last count was taken.

Our colleague Sherri Van Saxon, of Van Saxon & Associates, in Santa Fe, NM, recently shared some of the data she’s been working with on behalf of her clients:

  • From 2000 to 2010 regional population growth was three to four times greater for the South and West (14.3% and 13.8%, respectively) than for the Midwest (3.9%) and Northeast (3.2%)
  • Among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas the population of Las Vegas-Paradise, NV, increased by 42% from 2000 to 2010; Provo-Orem, UT, by 40%; and Austin-Round Rock, TX, by 37%
  • In the largest U.S. cities no single racial or ethnic group predominates and no single demographic group represents a majority, over 50%, of the population
  • The Asian population grew faster than any other major race group between 2000 and 2010, growing by 43.3% versus the White/Caucasian growth rate of 9.7%
  • Hispanics now outnumber African-Americans for the first time in most U.S. metropolitan areas.  In New Jersey, Hispanics just passed African Americans as that state’s largest minority group.  In Dallas County the Hispanic minority grew from 13% in 2000 to 38% today

As Sherri points out, these population movements and the race and Hispanic origin data underline a demographic transformation that will result in major social and cultural shifts in our nation—and that can have a real impact on marketing and menu development. For instance, Hispanics are much more likely to bring children when they dine out, potentially impacting overall party profiles and menu choices.

There are now some 50.5 million Hispanics living in this country, or 16.3% of the population. Moreover, the increase in the Hispanic population accounted for most of the nation’s growth (56%) from 2000 to 2010.

 

For restaurant operators, this represents an important opportunity, and in fact, according to NPD, Hispanics tally up 9.8 billion visits to restaurants in the United States each year.

But it’s also important to remember that Hispanics are not one monolithic group. They may come from cultures as diverse as Mexico (representing the largest population group, with about 31 million in 2008, when the total Latino population was 46.8 million), Guatemala (just under 1 million individuals) and Peru (519,000).

Income, education, average age and proficiency with English also vary greatly. For instance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, for the same year 80.5% of those born in Puerto Rico report being proficient in English, versus 39.1% of those born in Guatemala. This affects marketing from the point of view of both prospective customers and prospective employees.

Van Saxon & Associates specializes in helping clients develop successful short- and long-term marketing and business strategies based on the comprehensive research and analysis she conducts for each client.You can order maps and data by census tracks, congressional districts, towns or cities, counties or states. For more information, call 505.231-2211 or email Sherri Van Saxon at sherri@vansaxonassoc.com.

 

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Suggestive Selling in Restaurants: Don’t Push It

May 08, 2011

By Joan Lang

 

Not so long ago we were at one of our favorite local restaurants—or at least, it used to be—sitting at our favorite place to eat: the bar.

Nowadays, with the eating-at-the-bar phenomenon growing like Topsy, being a bartender can be a pretty good gig income-wise. Perhaps it’s the fact that tending bar is more like being onstage than running between tables is, but customers at the bar can be sitting ducks, and this guy was really pushing his luck.

Over the course of our multi-course meal, we watched him upsell the couple next to us to a high-end call vodka in their Cosmopolitans (where you can’t really taste it), sell a second half-dozen oysters to the singleton on my right by telling him the season was almost over, talk a group of four into getting four different wines-by-the-glass pairings instead of an all-purpose bottle, and numerous other suggestive sales. In general, he treated his customers like dumb hicks who didn’t know how to order dinner—in this, a place that probably has a $75-plus per-person average check anyway—and we saw every move.

His boss must have loved him, but we didn’t:  He pushed us to split a salad in addition to our appetizers, and tried to shame my husband into buying a more expensive red (“What if I told you that you could get a much better wine if you spent just 17 more dollars?”); in fact, he didn’t back off until one of us made the universal  “cut it” gesture, slashing hand across the neck.  Now if we glance in and he’s on duty, we spend our money elsewhere.

Still, suggestive selling is one of those time-honored ways to boost the check, and there are ways to do it without irritating customers, especially ones who are experienced enough to know better:

  • Use a blackboard or printed specials menu, a particularly useful tactic with regulars, who may want something a little different. It doesn’t matter if these items carry a higher price point; just don’t forget to list it
  • List a few fun, minimally priced nibbles on the bar menu—you do have a bar menu, right? There’s nothing better than a quick little something (a dish of marinated olives, a deviled egg of the day, some cheese or a savory dip) to enjoy  with your drink while you get it together on the rest of the order
  • Create a few signature dishes that really attract attention going across the dining room, perhaps with a sizzling iron pan or a fantastic aroma released when the server uncovers the top of an individual casserole, or a towering ice cream dessert. Other people will notice, and want one
  • Offer a variety of price points, realizing that customers may want something if it represents enough of a value. That may mean smaller portions on some items or lesser-known wines in addition to the bell-ringers; it’s the essence of hospitality to give patrons a choice
  • Get your servers’ buy-in. They should taste everything on your menu, including specials, so they can make informed and impassioned decisions; as a customer, nothing is worse—well, almost nothing—than being told “everything’s good”
  • On a related note, train and train again, and observe your staff at the point of service. Don’t let them browbeat customers or treat them like they’re only good for a tip

There’s a difference between suggestive sales and being pushy. It may be a fine line, but it’s never been more important.

 

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Move over beef tacos, fish is gaining in popularity

May 01, 2011

With the fast casual boom and rising popularity of Mexican menu items (think tacos), there’s been an interesting new finding in a recent market intelligence report from Technomic.

They found that while chicken and beef are still the main ingredients in tacos, the amount of fish tacos on restaurant menus was up 22.5 percent in a one year (2009-2010).

Fish Tacos - Ricky's Fish Tacos CC BY 2.0

Findings from the research in this report also show an increase in sales by 2.7 for limited service Mexican restaurants which is impressive considering the 3.2 contraction for the industry during the same period.

Now more than ever, consumers seeking convenience, affordability and ethnic dining experience — the Mexican fast casual model has proven to satisfy these needs.