Category Archives: food

August 17, 2012 · 8:57 am

Your Name Here

Let’s end the week with some Foodie Friday Fun on beverages.

A logo used, and trademarked, by PepsiCo for M...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might have seen an announcement that Mountain Dew was adding another product. They added something called Johnson City Gold, which is a malt-flavored addition (Olde English for the younger set?) to the line. However, according to Food Business News the Johnson City Gold product name may be short-lived. As part of the test market introduction, the company is running a contest to establish a new brand name. Sound familiar?

It should. There was another contest recently called “Dub The Dew” which elicited such fine names for a new green apple-flavored soda as “Diabeetus,” “Gushing Granny,” and “Moist Nugget.”  This is what can go very wrong in these days of a marketing department of millions.  A noted hacker group hijacked the contest (with pretty hilarious results) and Pepsi, to their credit, admitted in a tweet that “Dub the Dew definitely lost to The Internet“.  Ya think?

I admire the Pepsi folks for letting their customer at Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen (the local guys who actually ran the contest) give it a try.  I’m also a big fan of a well-executed practical joke.  This wasn’t the first time an internet-based naming program had gone terribly wrong.  It probably won’t be the last.  There’s a lot of good sentiment in wanting to listen to your customers, but remember that your customers in this case are a younger demographic, just the sort that thinks the creation of a new internet meme is way better than the creation of a new brand.

Maybe the promotion succeeded – after all, I’m writing about it as have many others.  Is any PR good PR?  Maybe so in this case – it’s all pretty harmless fun.  But it might be neither fun nor harmless the next time, and thinking about that balance between welcoming the crowd into the conversation and controlling the message is an important part of marketing these days.

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August 10, 2012 · 8:37 am

Non Troppo

It’s hard to know what topic to choose for Foodie Friday in the middle of Summer.

English: Insalata caprese, made from mozzarell...

Insalata caprese, made from mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil and basil.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After all, there is no other time of the year when a cook has so many great ingredients from which to choose. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, zucchini and (it seems) just about everything else are near or at their peak season now. It becomes hard to choose a topic just as it is to choose which to use for dinner.
Of course, the ingredients themselves are a theme we’ve hit before. I’ve written about being choosy and not settling for an inferior product, either in the kitchen or in the office.  Today I want to write about the corollary to great ingredients: not getting in their way.

Obviously you can’t put basil fresh from the garden next to a perfect tomato and buffalo mozzarella and expect a brilliant caprese salad to put itself together.  You still need to do some work and add a bit (and only a bit) of salt, acid, and great olive oil.  But, as the italian phrase goes, non troppo – not too much.  Overdressing or over seasoning the great basics just gets in the way of their flavors.  You want to bring those flavors out, not hide them.  Slices of zucchini and other summer vegetables perfectly sliced and roasted can be a fantastic meal.  Bake them in layers and cover them in cheese and you might get a tasteless, soggy mess of a gratin.

It’s the same with your team.  Find the best people, educate them on your goals, help fill in their skill set where necessary, and then get out of the way.  You want to manage them but non troppo – not too much.  How many of us have worked for a micro-manager who wants things done his or her way even if they’re wrong?  How often are you sitting around having drinks after work with your peers and the discussion uncovers widespread unhappiness with how the team is being used?  The better that team is the more likely that they have skill sets in certain areas that are superior to those of their supervisor in those areas.  As managers, we want those people on our team.  They’re not threats – they’re our salvation.

I love cooking in Summer since there’s less I have to do.  It’s more about the shopping than it is the cooking.  Great managing is that way – it’s almost more about the hiring than it is the managing.  You need to manage, but non troppo.  You with me?

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August 3, 2012 · 8:43 am

Avocados And Your Business

Foodie Friday is here and today’s topic is an ad I came across while reading one of my favorite food magazines. I own many knives and I’m not opposed to buying more of them. Yes, I realize I only have two hands and it’s generally a bad idea to use more than one knife at a time, so another knife is not a priority. Still, I appreciate that each of the knives I own is of a particular sort and it’s generally a good idea to use a tool appropriate to the task. While a good chef’s knifecan handle almost anything (and our kitchen is equipped with them in several sizes), having a boning knife makes that task easier, just as a good slicing knife or a bread knife can cut meat or bread, respectively, better than can a general purpose blade.

That said, I laughed out loud when I saw an ad for an avocado knife. Seriously. A knife dedicated to cutting, pitting, and scooping avocados.  Of course, I saw a business point immediately.

This is a solution in search of a problem.  I’ve cut hundreds of avocados.  I generally use my smaller chef’s knife to remove the seed and a spoon to scoop out the flesh.  I’ve never had a problem or wished I had a better tool with which to do the job, unlike seeding a mango, for example.  We don’t just come across this mistake in the kitchen.  I’ve spoken with quite a few businesses who have thought that what they were developing was something really important but for which there wasn’t a need.  Or demand.  Or a market.

Obviously consumers aren’t always aware that they have a problem until the solution comes along.  Steve Jobs was a master of this approach.  People like Edison and Bell were as well.  However, for most of us, the identification of the problem – and the market for it – before creating a solution is a better way to spend our business days.  You get the point.  Me?  I suddenly have a hankering for guacamole.

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