Tag Archives: Food

March 6, 2015 · 11:55 am

Indian Food And Your Team

It’s Foodie Friday and what has my attention today is an article in the Washington Post Wonkblog.  Anything titled “Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious” has my full attention. After all, anyone who cooks wants to learn some secret to make everything taste better, right? As it turns out there was a business secret in there as well.

English: Thali

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As reported in GeekWire:

The researchers broke each dish down to ingredients and compared how often and heavily those ingredients shared flavor compounds. What they found was the less often dishes “shared” flavor compounds, the more delicious they tended to be. “The unique makeup of Indian cuisine can be seen in some dishes more than others, and it seems to be tied to the use of specific ingredients,” they reported. “Spices usually indicate dishes with flavors that have no chemical common ground.”

In other words, in the West many of us try to find flavors that “go together”.  The MIT Technology Review put it this way:

The food pairing hypothesis is the idea that ingredients that share the same flavors ought to combine well in recipes. For example, the English chef Heston Blumenthal discovered that white chocolate and caviar share many flavors and turn out to be a good combination. Other unusual combinations that seem to confirm the hypothesis include strawberries and peas, asparagus and butter, and chocolate and blue cheese.

And of course, as with so many things in this world, that’s a right answer, not THE right answer.  The lesson from Indian – and as it turns out many other Asian –  cuisine is that more flavors with less overlap makes for a better dish. And that is a great business point too.

Many of us build teams that are way too homogeneous.  In our effort to hire people who will “fit in” to the team, we don’t optimize our flavor profiles – how well the team functions.  The team would be much better with people who have less overlap.  You need members who will challenge ideas and not just go along.  More perspectives, more skills, more voices equals a better product.  Just as what makes a great chef is the ability to get those contrasting flavors to mesh so too is the test of a great manager how well he or she can bring together a diverse team of strong people.

Recipes as a network – who’d have thought that?!?!

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February 27, 2015 · 12:11 pm

The Real Thing

The topic is syrup this Foodie Friday – maple syrup specifically.  You might know that I’m a fan of the work done by the Cook’s Illustrated folks.  Despite their incessant hawking of yet another Cook’s product, the work they do is always spot on and I’ve never made anything using one of their recipes that hasn’t been delicious.

Grades of Vermont maple syrup. From left to ri...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They do product tests as well and one of them concerned maple syrup.  To me it also contained a business lesson.  I’ll let them describe the test:

Sold side by side, genuine maple syrup and so-called pancake syrup (made with high-fructose corn syrup) can range from more than $1 per ounce for the real deal to a mere 14 cents per ounce for an imitation. But, price and product names aside, which tastes best? To find out, we pitted four top-selling national brands of maple syrup against five popular pancake syrups, hoping to find the best one for pouring over pancakes or using in recipes.

As you might guess, there was no comparison.  Genuine syrup was easily distinguishable from imitation and was universally preferred in the taste test.  As the Coke people learned a long time ago, consumers can spot and usually prefer the “real thing.”  Fake brands taste “off” even if they are more friendly to the consumer’s pocketbook.  Not only does authentic taste better but it sells better too.

The concept of authenticity has been researched.  A recent paper in the Journal Of Business Research found that quality commitment, sincerity and heritage all contribute to consumers labeling a brand as authentic.  Many brands ranging from food products to vodka to shoes use this notion to market their products and it works.  As a story in the Times reported:

Several studies have shown that authenticity — real or perceived — can affect the bottom line. Brian Wansink, a marketing professor at Cornell University, found that when menu items had geographical or nostalgic labels (“traditional Cajun” red beans with rice, “Grandma’s” zucchini cookies), diners bought them more often and said they tasted better.

The real maple syrup just tasted better.  Isn’t that something we’d want for our businesses too?  We can get there by being real in all of our communications with consumers and holding our products to high standards, even if it means they cost a little more.

Make sense?

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February 20, 2015 · 12:24 pm

Il Coperto

The Foodie Friday word of the day is “coperto.” For those of you unfamiliar with the term it’s an Italian word meaning “covered.” When you eat out in Italy and wish to dine sitting down, you pay the coperto – the cover charge. It’s usually a couple of euros and is meant to cover the costs of the table, tablecloth, napkin, dishes, washing and cleaning, heating and light – everything involved with a restaurant meal which is neither food nor work costs of the staff.

Spaghetti all' arrabbiata

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is a corollary to the coperto – a “no tipping” policy. Since the coperto covers the non-staff items, the margins on food and beverage can be spent on staff. The US is one of the few countries where there is a two-tier pay system because we are one of the few that operates in a system in which someone is dependent upon tips for their income. The cooks and dishwashers often make far less than the better-compensated front-of-house servers and bartenders. Thanks to tips, service staff can take home as much as twice the pay of their kitchen counterparts.  This is beginning to change and I think it’s a good thing.  It’s also instructive thinking for all businesses.

Quite a few restaurants are starting to charge a nominal fee per head much like the coperto.  Others are inflating their food prices but forbidding tipping – in essence building in a 20% tip.  The final cost to a customer is the same assuming that they left a reasonable tip.  This allows them to pay a much higher wage and to provide benefits such as health care.  The transient nature of the business is changing as great servers and cooks can be compensated and induced to stay on.

What happens when there is a bad experience?  Think about it.  First, it’s rare that you withhold the entire tip.  That’s punishing an entire staff for one person’s incompetence.  The reality is that you’d probably complain to the manger.  It’s rarely a money issue.  Second, what happens quite a bit is that people are just too damn cheap.  $5 on a $125 bill is unfair but that is more the reality of the business than to person who overtips.

What does this have to do with your business?  First, ask yourself if there is a two-tier system that unfairly rewards one group over another.  Second, what have you done to make sure that your staff is incented to remain?  As with customers, I find it’s always more cost-effective to retain an existing competent person than to find, hire, and train a new one. Finally, how can you rethink how the money customers pay is positioned without seeming to nickel and dime them?

There are a lot of ways to change the US system.  At one place servers get paid either $10/hour OR 20% of their food sales, whichever is higher, and it’s almost always the over for servers.  Others charge a flat fee while others automatically add a 20 percent service charge to all bills or raise their food prices.  All forbid tipping.  Hopefully everyone wins.  Employees make more and consistent money, customers get better service due to a happy, motivated long-term staff, business owners continue to make reasonable profits.  Sounds like a plan to me.  You?

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