Category Archives: food

August 14, 2020 · 4:00 pm

My Signature Dish

Foodie Friday and it’s time to plan out the weekend. I’ve got some friends arriving during the week and they’ve already asked for some very specific things to eat. Not because they’re picky eaters but because I’ve served them before and they seem to consider these things as signature dishes of mine.

If you watch “Beat Bobby Flay” on the Food Network, the heart of the competition is when a chef names his or her signature dish and competes against Bobby who tries to improve on the chef’s version. Sometimes Bobby does just that, usually by making it his own. He’ll add some different spices or honey. He’ll plate it more attractively or top it with a relish that brings out the dish’s flavor. When you think about it, Bobby is altering the chef’s signature to make it HIS signature. It’s not forgery; it’s uniquely his.

That’s something each of us should be asking ourselves about our own business. First, what’s MY signature dish? What do I make in a way that is truly mine? No chef walks on Bobby’s show and announces some dish that the chef has made up. It’s always something standard – bouillabaisse, green chicken curry, veggie burgers, or any one of hundreds of things you can find on many menus. The chef is known for cooking it in their own unique way. What are you known for that may be done by others but not as well or as uniquely as you?

If you can’t really answer the question, that might be something you want to spend some time and develop. When you’re basically a commodity, you have very little room to compete on anything but price. If market demand is overwhelmingly high, you’re fine. When it’s not, you’re in trouble.

Your signature dish is you. It represents your style and identity. It becomes a part of how others see you. If your business doesn’t have one, you need to get in the proverbial kitchen and get to work developing one. Sooner rather than later, please!

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , ,

August 7, 2020 · 2:05 pm

Feeling Fit

This Foodie Friday, it’s about chickens and eggs. Putting aside the age-old question about which came first, I read something interesting about them the other day and I thought it pointed us all in a good direction.

Before we get into our topic at hand, let me ask you if you wear any sort of device such as a Fitbit? I only started wearing one about 9 months ago but I’ve learned quite a bit about how my body works. For example, I have a very low resting heart rate and I generally fall within the norms for men my age when it comes to my sleep pattern. It’s also helpful when it comes to tracking how much exercise I get and I was surprised to find that walking up and down the hills of my golf course is equivalent to walking up and down 60 floors.

It turns out that we can use Fitbit-like devices for other things, one of which is to improve egg production without chemicals. Scientists at the University of California have found that a Fitbit-like device worn by farm chickens may help combat insect infestations and eventually increase the production of fresh eggs. The tiny device tracks bird behavior rather than steps. It measures a chicken’s distinct actions, such as biting, pecking, and preening. Chickens who engage in more feather cleaning are more likely to have infections, and the data can help farmers track down affected chickens before an infestation spreads to the whole flock.

It got me thinking about how we tend to take whatever measuring we’re doing in business for granted without actually spending time thinking about if there are things unmeasured that could be useful or if we could measure things in a different way. Many of the analytics we’re used to seeing are, frankly, pretty useless. Marketing investment is justified based on activity (GRPs, Impressions, Reach, etc.), and not based on outcomes (Revenue, Loyalty, Intent, etc.). The chicken producers are smarter than that. Their focus is on the outcome – more eggs.

We need to think about what we measure in terms of purpose and not just in terms of output. We need to reframe our thinking. And I must be pretty passionate about this because according to my Fitbit, my heart rate is up a full 3 beats per minute as I’m writing this!

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food

Tagged as , , ,

July 24, 2020 · 3:26 pm

Yanking The Chain

Earlier today I prepped some chicken thighs for dinner. They’re the last of a 10-pound bag which was part of a 40-pound box we bought at the start of the pandemic. It was more of an opportunistic buy than panic buying. Many of the food distributors were getting rid of the boxes they would ordinarily sell to the restaurants which had been forced to close. We have a freezer and who doesn’t love a great deal? No, I’m not cooking 10-pounds of thighs this evening but I’ll admit that it’s been thigh week (bacon-wrapped thighs, chicken and black bean soup, and chicken enchiladas if you are curious as to where the other 8 pounds went) here.

Why do I bring that up this Foodie Friday? Because my opportunity buying was the result of a disruption in the supply chain. At the same time as I was getting chicken thighs, other folks were buying boxes of burgers and pork chops. What was unusual was that the same items we were getting dirt cheap were often unavailable in the supermarkets. That pesky supply chain again.

You’re probably aware of the toilet paper shortages. With people staying home, the paper made for institutions and offices was in lesser demand while people panic-bought the home version. The same thing happened with food and, in fact, is still happening if my trip to the market yesterday was any indication. There was nary a canned vegetable to be found other than the really large cans that might have otherwise gone to a commercial kitchen.

This from Bloomberg:

As consumers cook more at home, driving up grocery store sales, they’re steering clear of restaurants, which has big implications for how suppliers package and sell their meats and produce — and for demand. Restaurant portions are bigger, and meat, cheese, and butter, in particular, are consumed in higher quantities at restaurants, but so are vegetables.  Before the pandemic, Americans spent more than half their food budgets on dining out. Over the next 12 months, 70% of consumers plan to significantly decrease spending on restaurants, according to a Bank of America survey.

How does this apply to your business? It’s a reminder that every business needs to think hard about and prepare for disruption. It means doing things differently. As an example, I would never have considered a 40-pound box of thighs, even at the wholesale food price prior to the pandemic. The great price coupled with the uncertainty of the food supply chain at the time changed my mind.

The funny thing is that the food supply is quite plentiful. The issue is that the distribution system between the producer and demand is out of whack, which is causing massive headaches for every person involved: farmers, packagers, distributors, retailers, and end-users. While it’s the rare business that can bypass that broken system altogether, every business needs to make alternative plans just in case. Backups for your backups, I guess. Make sense?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Thinking Aloud, What's Going On

Tagged as , , , ,