SheeFood

What Was Up at NRA?

I noshed my way through the National Restaurant Association annual convention in Chicago a couple weeks ago looking for trends and interesting new products. This year what interested me most was not the food trucks, menu technology booths, the kid marketing programs or even the hash brown potatoes shaped like a tube, filled with eggs that stay warm by rolling around on a hot-dog roller. I was interested in the enthusiastic mom-and-pop inventors who were there to show, tell and sell their story. I found two that I just loved.

I happened upon Crumble.Ons after I snatched up a mini pancake and was delighted to experience an unexpected yummy chocolate crunch throughout. I stopped. A crunchy pancake? “What do you have here?” I asked. Malia Beal beamed as she told me the story…

Her mother Mary Jo, a retired food columnist for the Chicago Sun Times, was hosting some relatives at their lake house. One evening she served s’mores by the fireside. “She brought the leftover ingredients back to the house, chopped them up and the next morning mixed them in the pancake batter. The kids went crazy,” she said.

Mary Jo walked across the street with some of the pancakes to visit her neighbor, a retired research and development director for ConAgra (Tom Henry.) She asked him what he thought. He thought this was a delicious idea. Some 18 months later, they had a sellable product and showed it the first time at the 2011 NRA show.

They call that product S’mores Crunch®. It’s crunchy chunks, which they describe as a “confectionary condiment.” What it does for pancakes, it does mixed in ice cream. I know it requires some food science to get it to hold its flavor and crunch in heat and cold.

They already have and will continue to expand into other crunchy Crumble-Ons. I was just happy to find them in their own little spot in McCormick Place.

The other was Edibles by Jack—the edibles being crunchy spoons! Now that’s an idea. I was game to eat a spoon. The one I munched on was pretty bland, as I imagine a spoon should be. But he has 10 flavors, like corn, dill and lemon; cranberry; chocolate; and coconut curry.

Jack Milan previously owned restaurants and a catering company. He regularly lost 25%-30% of the porcelain spoons from which he served his catered dainties. Either guests stole them, broke them or threw them away. Desperation was the mother of invention for him, and now he’s been well publicized. He was there to expand his market.

Indeed, his idea has spread. I came across another booth far away from his that was selling molds to make edible spoons.

I imagine someday spoons will be the ultimate dessert.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

What's Up With Mac & Cheese

Besides burgers, perhaps nothing is as ubiquitous on the plate inside and outside the home as mac & cheese. That’s a tad bit mystifying to me since mac & cheese has touched my lips no more than a dozen times in my life. I wasn’t raised on it and never became a fan. Am I alone in the world?

It was interesting, however, when I visited the test kitchens at Meredith Corp. in New York earlier this month and was exposed to mac & cheese prepared four ways. Meredith publishes Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal and Every Day With Rachael Ray. The food editors of those magazines test every recipe that appears on their pages an average of three times.

The food editors met with a group of us on an excursion to their office in conjunction with the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference. They decided it would be fun to serve us mac & cheese using recipes that appeared in their respective magazines. They asked us to guess which of the four versions appeared in which magazines. (I sampled three of them, and I bet I’m still under a dozen lifetime servings.)

Here are the types each magazine served, which would be especially interesting to any well-versed in the publications:

• Goat Cheese, Fig & Walnut Mac—Family Circle
Farro Mac ‘n’ Cheese with Bacon—Every Day With Rachael Ray
• Your basic garden variety Macaroni and Cheese—Ladies Home Journal
• Macaroni and Cheese with Caramelized Onions—Better Homes and Gardens

I have to say, the Farro Mac ‘n’ Cheese was the most interesting (I’m not saying the best). Farro was used in place of macaroni. The bacon saved it.

And what’s happening in restaurants with mac & cheese is no less interesting. One would think we as a country would be about over it, but alas, we’re not.

• A few fast-food restaurants have decided of late to add it as a healthy kid’s menu option. That would be Arby’s and Burger King.
• Others are adding it for the sake of variety. Wendy’s just announced this week that it is introducing macaroni and cheese made with white Vermont cheddar cheese.
• The popular dish also made the limited-time cheese-focused menu at Denny’s last fall. In that case, it was Mac ‘n Cheese Big Daddy Patty Melt.
• New restaurants also find a place for the American favorite on the menu. Café Enterprises Inc. plans to launch two new restaurant concepts this summer. One will be a fast-casual restaurant, and they plan to include Truffle Mac-N-Cheese on the menu.

May they all experience success of Kraft proportions. I’m sure I’ll never know.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

 

What's Next for Grant Achatz

What if…is a question a fiction novel writer asks repeatedly throughout writing a book.  It’s also something Grant Achatz has asked throughout his career as a restaurateur. His blank screen is the kitchen of Alinea and Next restaurants in Chicago.

Ruth Reichl, former editor in chief at the former Gourmet magazine asked him all the questions any of us would have liked to have asked at the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) conference on April 2 in New York. At first he seemed bored, but she managed to bring out the kid-in-a-candy-store side of him, and he highlighted how what if has worked for him…and what’s next.

What if… a restaurant didn’t just serve one type of cuisine, but it changed every quarter? That became the theme of Next Restaurant, the exploration of world cuisine, which has been open less than a year. He has done a Paris 1906 menu for awhile, then closed down for five days to redo everything and trained the staff before opening again with cuisine from Thailand. From there was Childhood. Next is elBulli, because his true hero and inspiration is Ferran Adrià. Later he will do Kyoto, Japan and then Sicily, Italy. He’s toying with later doing “Singapore future.”

What if… a restaurant could be more efficient and cost effective if it sold dinner tickets in advance over the internet rather than have people make phone reservations and pay after the meal? He’s doing it at Next, and it’s part of the theater of dining. Plus, he doesn’t have to pay $150,000 annually in reservationists’ salaries, and he knows how much money he will make every night. Reservations sell out months in advance. (There are even season ticket holders who visit each time the menu changes.) So many people try to get reservations that they are sold on a lottery basis.

What if… there was a cookbook available for all his Next menus? He decided to self publish via Apple ibooks, so anyone can download to their ipad for $4.99 or $5.99 and enjoy. Achatz is thinking that at the end of 2012, why not publish a print version cookbook of the four cuisines for the year?

What if… there were no tables? He’s thought this through at Alinea, and at times, has shaken up the dining experience a bit. To create a winter scene and experience, he cleared the tables out of the basement, set candles and dim lights around, set up real pine trees, made peppermint snow, and gave guests scoops to go around and scoop the snow off the trees and eat it. He’s also randomly picked tables of guests to uproot and move to a communal table where they sat with strangers—and loved it, he said.

What if… the theater of serving the food on the table (yes, a silicone-covered table, not plates) was choreographed with matching music? He had a video recording made of food preparation at the table, showed it to some cellists who wrote a musical score to choreograph with the movements of the chef. Practiced, but not yet fully implemented, the plan is for the chef to come out and serve and for cellists to come out and play the score live. “It’s powerful,” Achatz said. “It changed the flavor of the food. It’s like a palate cleanser. Your mind can’t focus on flavor and noise at the same time.” He actually tested the concept of music overpowering taste, using blue cheese. He and several other chefs popped blue cheese in their mouths and had the cellist play loudly. The taste vanished. “Some sounds enhance food, and some sound like sunshine. Does it make a tomato taste riper?” He left that unanswered.

What if… food could float? Recently his sous chef figured it out. Using green apple taffy and a helium tank, he stuck a hose in the taffy and it ballooned up. He snipped off the end and the taffy floated to the ceiling (where it stuck). Revise. Achatz cut an apple into thin strips and dehydrated them so they looked like string and attached them to the “balloons” to hold them down. The green apple Jolly Rancher-like balloons hover over the center of the table. He has caught guests putting their mouths up to the balloon for a hit of helium and start talking in high voices. (Well, for a $225 dinner, why not have a little fun?)

What if… his food could be more accessible to those without deep pockets? The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is working with Achatz to create an installation involving food. In a vast expanse of space, guests will walk on an eating journey with different sights, sounds, textures and tastes. It takes two years to see a museum idea come to fruition, and Achatz began discussions with curators eight months ago.

So, what’s the future of food? Achatz can’t wait to see what will be out there in 10 or 15 years, and assures all that he won’t be the one making it. But the upcoming generation of chefs will undoubtedly continue the theater of food.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

Who Wants Meat?

Vegetarian has an unfortunate reputation in some culinary thinking. Chefs and other foodservice operators almost need to step aside from the word and just think in terms of healthful menu items, or flavor-rich items with trendy ingredients, and it’s likely some will just happen to be vegetarian that anyone would love. For example, on the appetizer menu, wouldn’t mushroom caps filled with cheese, panko and herbs be simply amazing?—and oh, vegetarian. Hummus served with nearly anything reasonable is quite vegetarian and “in.”

I was working on an article for Sizzle magazine about Vegetarian cuisine (see “Beyond the Veggie Burger” to the right under “my articles”) and the most interesting thing a chef told me was that if a culinarian will just look to Japanese or Mediterranean cuisine for dish ideas, vegetarian items will naturally present themselves, because that’s just the way those two cuisines are.

And then let’s talk about salads. I was working on another article this week about menu engineering/pricing (more to say about that in another month), and I talked to a BBQ restaurant owner who learned something amazing about salads. The restaurant obviously is meat-centric, and so were the salads—mostly chicken variations (fried, grilled, smoked). What he didn’t realize for years was that some customers were getting mad. Why should they pay the price for one of these mammoths when they really just wanted a salad? So he redid the menu and took all the protein off the salads (and lowered the price), but mentioned on the menu the meats that were available for an extra charge. He quadrupled salad sales, and that without losing any sales of meat-topped salads.

It brings us to a little secret. Even those who aren’t vegetarians don’t always want a hunk of meat. Ask women. I didn’t think I was like that, but when I go to Costco on Saturday, which is really like a tapas-sampling event, I won’t take the little portions of sausage or coated chicken or ham. I just can’t imagine anything more unappetizing than a wad of meat in my mouth while I’m shopping.

Recent research by the Vegetarian Resource Group shows that 16% of those surveyed say more than half of their meals are vegetarian, and 48% look for vegetarian foods. So the audience for non-meat items is certainly larger than the vegetarian segment. That’s why it’s important for all foodservice operators to take a second look at the menu and see to it that everyone’s interests are being served.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

My Recollections of Charlie Trotter

Before the doors close at Charlie Trotter’s in August and the famed chef heads off to travel the world, attend graduate school and embark upon new endeavors, I thought I’d share my memories and encounters, as I’m sure many people will do.

I first heard of this Zeus-like figure at the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference 10 years ago after I had just become editor of Produce Concepts magazine. I didn’t know of him before that IACP workshop session, but it was clear that those around me weren’t just listening to him, they were absorbing him. If he would have advised that all tablecloths should be orange and next to every plate should be a pitch fork, there would have been unquestioning agreement, and so it would have been. I think the session topic was how to achieve greatness, and his stand-out to me was “be humble and serve well.”

The next time I saw him was at the 2003 grand opening of the Culinary Vegetable Institute in Milan, Ohio, founded by The Chef’s Garden. Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein were the stars at the festive event. The two had just co-authored “Raw” cookbook. Raw foods was a concept that was on the cusp of hot trend, maybe because Charlie was in on it. In my mind, Roxanne upstaged him at the event when it was made known that as she and her family stepped off the airplane, servers greeted them with raw food so they wouldn’t have to consume normal people food. I thought that was hilarious.

But the time and the topic were right in 2003. I decided to make raw food the cover story for one of my magazine issues with Charlie and Roxanne on the cover and the main sources for the article. Roxanne’s PR go-between person asked for some back issues of the magazine before agreeing to cooperate. Horrors, she read an article in which I had outlined some of the benefits of genetically modified (GMO) fruits and vegetables. Roxanne had a little activist outburst. No way would she have anything to do with a magazine that had something good to say about GMOs. She refused any involvement, and by association, so did Charlie.

But my final encounter with Charlie put me back in balance. I took a magazine-related trip to Chicago and contacted his PR person who insisted on treating me to lunch at Charlie Trotter's seated at “the chef’s table” in the kitchen with a few other guests. Awesome. The kitchen workers were respectful, professional and provided impeccable service. The dainty dishes were delicious for sure. Charlie stopped by to chat with us and was very endearing and humble. This last encounter was the perfect experience of all that was Charlie Trotter.  

I wish him the very best as he closes his doors in August after 25 years. I’m sure he will be tremendous at whatever is next on his plate.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

Are Vegetables Really That Ghastly?

Anyone involved in fruit and/or vegetable marketing in the U.S. can certainly be thankful that the produce product life cycle hasn’t reached maturity yet. A lot can be done in marketing and new product innovation—and in fact, probably should be done. American’s just aren’t that motivated to eat those fruits and vegetables.

According to Mintel’s Fruit and Vegetables—U.S., February 2012  report, U.S. retail sales of fresh and processed (as in canned and frozen) fruits and vegetables was $96.2 billion in 2011. Sales are up—a compound annual growth rate of 4.1% from 2006-11.

But I think a lot of that produce is ending up in consumers’ trash cans, because while they might have great healthful intentions, it’s not translating into produce consumption. The USDA recommends that most men eat three servings of vegetables per day (2 ½ for men aged 51+ and for women up through age 50). But 70% of those surveyed for the Mintel report say they don’t eat more than two servings per day (7% say they eat none, and 63% say they eat 1-2 servings). Other questions in the survey get to the reasons why consumption is so low.

• 37% say they don’t get around to eating the vegetables they buy before they go bad and have to be thrown away. So we’re back to good intentions and the trash can.
• 62% say they would buy more vegetables if they were cheaper. I suppose price is an easy excuse for lackadaisical vegetable eating. But you know, canned vegetables aren’t that expensive.
• 12% admit they just don’t like eating vegetables. There ya go.
• 27% say they would eat more vegetables if they knew how to prepare them. Ah, there’s something marketers and retailers can work with.

Here are some ideas. Blanket the market with recipes in store ads, demos, recipe centers and on packaging. Develop creative packaging, including appropriate vegetables for a specific popular recipe. What about a few avocados, a guacamole dip package and a packet of mayonnaise in an overwrapped tray with instructions? In the meat department, place overwrapped trays of diced onions and garlic with instructions on stir frying with a particular kind of meat. These are merchandising ideas retailers read about in trade magazines, but really, it’s time to do it.

By the way, consumption of fruit is even worse. Some 14% say they don’t eat any fruit per day, and 64% say they eat 1-2 servings. That totals 78% who don’t eat more than two fruit servings per day.

Restaurants can play a role in increasing produce consumption. That’s the place where experimentation happens leading to tasty vegetable combining and flavoring. Perhaps a regional retailer could team with a local restaurant for recipes to promote in the produce department, in ads and online. It’s a win for vegetable sales, restaurant advertising and consumer understanding for how to prepare vegetables.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

Identity Crisis or Smart Marketing?

There’s a blurring of food lines in restaurants of late that shows them becoming restless with who they are.

• Dunkin' Donuts has gone beyond the sweet tooth and now offers sandwiches all day. Dreams of glazed donuts are expanding to visions of a Ham & Cheese Bakery Sandwich, Turkey, Cheddar & Bacon Bakery Sandwich and Chicken Salad and Tuna Salad Bakery Sandwiches. In other words, real food.
• Taco Bell is becoming your morning diner in some states. Its strategy is to allure breakfast eaters with name brands like Seattle’s Best Coffee; Cinnabon Delights; Tropicana Orange Juice; Johnsonville Sausage and Egg Wrap; and then non-branded Steak and Egg Burrito; Grande Skillet Burrito; and three combos that include a drink and hash browns.
• In an initial few markets, Starbucks is mimicking a wine bar by adding wine, beer, savory snacks, small plates and hot flatbreads.
• Hardee’s is taking a stab at the family-dining market by adding a Country Fried Steak ‘N’ Gravy Breakfast Platter with hash rounds, eggs, and buttermilk biscuit.

I don’t think that all this is a case of looking down the street at the next guy and saying “I can do that.” Rather, they are practicing Marketing 101—Change or self destruct. We’re living in a fast-changing world, and anything that is still done the same way it was three years ago is stale for sure and in danger of demise. We can expect to see a lot more upping the menu ante and a lot more often.

So, while we’re looking at change, I’d like to suggest another one for Hardee’s. Let’s think of a new graphic to replace the star. Perhaps run a Facebook contest for ideas and consumer interaction. If Walmart could replace the smiley face, Hardee’s can admit it’s time to find something better than the smiley star.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

Restaurants Turn Marketing Into Social Experiences

Advertising a restaurant with no ad budget? It’s possible, and some restaurants are doing it quite successfully. Free advertising is just one of the benefits of intentional use of social media. The whole topic is something I’ve looked at from several angles, and yea for every operator who has mined the online options and forged ahead with an up-to-the-second social marketing plan.

Many find that their target audience is most into Facebook, so that seems to be the space that operators leap into first—collecting “likes” like their life depends on it. Personally, I’ve visited many a site that has an interesting element, game or piece of information and the only way to get to it is to “like” the operator first. Annoying, yes, but effective? Yes.

Every time I “like” a page, all my Facebook friends are alerted in their news streams. The average person has 140 Facebook friends, so imagine the number of brand impressions every time a restaurant – or anyone – gets “liked.”

I spoke with Amanda Hite, founder and CEO of Talent Revolution Inc., a social brand consulting firm, and she warns companies not to make every Facebook post about a deal to get purchases out of their fans. That’s not cool. Social media is about socializing and making your fans your peers. So ask them questions. In fact, she recommends a 4-1-1 rule. Four posts should be replies to what fans are posting on your site. One should be asking a question or starting a conversation, and one a promotional post. (For more on these aspects, go on over to the right side under “my articles” and click on “Tweet Sheet.”)

One thing is for sure. If you want to reach Millennials (those aged 11-34), you need to be online. Some 52.8% of surveyed Millennials say they like checking out brands on social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to an article in Nation’s Restaurant News. Additionally, when a brand uses social media, 33.4% say they like that brand more.

Facebook is a rallying point for some astute restaurant marketers:

• Applebee’s has developed a Facebook fan base of more than 1.8 million. How did the chain do it? Ingenuity. For example, in May 2011 it ran a month-long “Girl’s Night Out” (GNO) invitation promotion via Facebook. Site visitors could send a GNO invitation with time, date, Applebee’s location, and a personalized message. The Facebook application allowed fans to keep track of the events they hosted, attended, or both.
• Outback Steakhouse has more than 1.6 million “likes” on Facebook. In December, it used the social media site to “recruit” two social media journalists. Site visitors were encouraged to fill out an online form to qualify for the grand prize of a free trip to the January 2012 college football Outback Bowl between the Michigan State Spartans and the Georgia Bulldogs in Tampa.

There are so many chains doing amazing things, and small mom-and-pop operations can do the same thing. Social media is the marketing medium of the future, and the sooner that restaurants can get a plan together, the quicker they can start directing their marketing dollars elsewhere, and many are translating those dollars into charity donations – making themselves good corporate citizens and giving themselves more to talk about. It’s all good.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

What’s Up With Foodservice in 2012

The food scene changes so fast, if you stay in bed with the flu too long, you’ll miss out. But because I love to stay on top of it all, here’s a time capsule of what I see going and coming in 2012.

•  The cult of Charlie Trotter will be disbanded come August when the famed and followed Chicago chef closes his namesake restaurant in order to travel and return to college to study something else (philosophy and political theory). Rising stars who have sought to mimic his food and his ways will be re-acclimating to life sans Charlie.
• While we’re saying our farewells, goodbye Gorgonzola and Pear Ravioli with Shrimp at Olive Garden. It was too “out there” and hurt the chain’s bottom line. The CEO of the chain’s parent company, Darden, conceded that the dish was too adventurous. It’s going off the menu. Well, maybe it was a tad bit ahead of its time, but barely.
• Let’s bid adieu to comfort food while we’re sweeping away 2011.The economy is starting to look up, and sticking with comfort food isn’t the path forward. That’s what Suzy Badaracco, president of trend forecasting company Culinary Tides Inc. told me this week. And I quote: “Right now is the best time to be experimental. (Consumers are) exhibiting recovery behaviors. Get more courageous and playful. Now is not time for comfort food.”
• Rising chicken and beef prices are slamming restaurants in the same blink of time that they are discovering the need to have a handful of value-priced items permanently on the menu to get the most business. Figuring out that balance will be the work of geniuses. Help wanted.
• Menu labeling laws requiring calorie disclosure on menus/menu boards will come down in 2012 with restaurants given at least six months to comply. Anyone noticing how popular apples are becoming at fast-food restaurants? Stay tuned for even more of that. Gotta show some respectable calorie counts.

 Let me know what you see ahead.

Jody

Dining Out Deals in 2012

Two dinners for $20. Gotta love that. And most of us do love that. That’s just the problem for the casual-dining restaurants that lure customers in with them as a limited-time offer (LTO). They create monsters. Think Chili’s and Applebee’s. They made money off of the “two for $20” LTO dinners for several years only because it brought in more guests. But once the deals were off, the value-oriented customers were out of there. Sales went down. The deals had to be brought back. And thus went the cycle.

Enough of that nonsense.

Now go to Applebee’s and Chili’s, and you’ll find the deals are a permanent fixture on the menu. It’s a new way of thinking for full-service restaurants that fast-food restaurants have been onto for a few years. It used to be called barbell pricing. Now it’s called tiered pricing. There must be something on the menu for everyone—the value-seeker and the hungry one looking to indulge with little thought to price.  

Among fast-food restaurants, the latest obvious example is Wendy’s. It has a value menu (“My 99¢ Everyday”), but at the indulgent end, it has Dave’s Hot ‘N Juicy Cheeseburgers that are at least $4. And now, in the middle, they have the new “W” cheeseburger for $2.99 that has two 2.25-ounce patties. There’s something for everyone—quality and price-wise.

That’s what casual-dining restaurants are discovering.

It’s this new equation that may lead the full-service restaurant segment out of negative sales. According to Mintel, full-service restaurants’ sales were down 0.7% in 2011 (after being down in 2010, also), while limited-service restaurants (which includes fast-food and fast-casual restaurants) experienced 3.4% growth in 2011.

The economy will likely pick up, which will improve sales for full-service restaurants, but if they play their menu pricing/value strategy right, sales will likely go up in spite of the economy.

What that means for all of us, expect some pleasant permanent price deals on nearly any full-service restaurant menu going forward. I’m thinking-the kind where you pick a salad, entrée and side for a more reasonable price than you might have expected before. That will be the value side of the menu. Just start looking for it. I saw it at Ruth’s Chris Steak House last month.

Tell me what you find.

Jody