Tag Archives: Food industry

September 27, 2013 · 9:02 am

Fooled Again

Foodie Friday! The subject today isn’t actually food itself but the places in which it’s served. You probably how competitive the restaurant space is – just think about how hard it is for you to decide where to go eat when you go out. Which cuisine? How far to go? Is this new place any good? We’ve all been there.
More often than not these days, people turn to review sites such as Yelp for information.

English: 0

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s not news to any of us that some of the reviews on Yelp (and other review sites) are fake. Great ones may have been posted by the restaurant, bad ones could come from a competitor. Yelp has an algorithm that is supposed to spot and eliminate those issues to a great extent.  The folks at Harvard B-School released a study about it.  What they found is interesting but not terribly surprising:

First, roughly 16 percent of restaurant reviews on Yelp are identified as fraudulent, and tend to be more extreme (favorable or unfavorable) than other reviews. Second, a restaurant is more likely to commit review fraud when its reputation is weak, i.e., when it has few reviews, or it has recently received bad reviews. Third, chain restaurants – which benefit  less from Yelp – are also less likely to commit review fraud. Fourth, when restaurants face increased competition, they become more likely to leave unfavorable reviews for competitors. Taken in aggregate, these findings highlight the extent of review fraud and suggest that a business’s decision to commit review fraud respond to competition and reputation incentives rather than simply the restaurant’s ethics.

They looked at 316,415 reviews of 3,625 restaurants so it’s not a small study. That said, this doesn’t even address an individual who had a nice meal with good service but maybe had a run in with another customer and decides to blame the restaurant with an inaccurate review – I’d call that just as fake as the others.

The NY Attorney General cracked down on businesses that were writing fake reviews.  It’s a problem for anyone who relies on the internet for research.  So don’t.

What?

Yes.  I wrote that.  Instead, use the web to find out about available options and use trusted sites with paid, professional reviewers.  Then put down the device and ask a friend or coworker or family member.  There’s an expression in computing – GIGO – garbage in, garbage out.  That’s what many review sites are like despite their best efforts (and I mean that they try to weed out fake stuff sincerely).  Some of it is the blind leading the rest of us – who knows how educated and daring the palates are of most amateurs?  A bunch of it is fraud.  The problem is we don’t know which is which.

Or maybe we just need not to be afraid to be “wrong” about the choices we make and go and enjoy an evening out with someone?

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June 14, 2013 · 10:27 am

Cronuts

An unlikely source for our Foodie Friday Fun this week – the folks over at Freakonomics. I’m a big fan of both the books and the podcast because their whole schtick is looking at things very differently albeit from an economic point of view.  Today it’s the cronut, an invention by a NYC baker which is a cross between a doughnut and a croissant. As Freakonomics reports:

Cronuts are so popular that lines form at 6 a.m. — 2 hours before the shop opens — and Ansel runs out within minutes. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet (and Craigslist) there is even a cronut black market, with unauthorized cronut scalpers charging up to $40 apiece for home delivery (a mark up of 700%). And of course there are cronut knockoffs appearing all over the world. Ansel has even trademarked the name “cronut.”

So here we have an interesting and, hopefully, common problem – you do invent a better mousetrap although once it’s out there it’s not particularly hard to duplicate.  You can try to protect it via patents or trademarks but the former is costly (and the laws are changing) and the latter is hard to protect for something such as this.  Why?  Because it is almost a “generic” term such as Kleenex or Xerox (tissues and copying, respectively).  The article has a great overview of the laws involved if you’re interested.  So what can you do?

In two words, be better.  Two more:  be smarter.  You are, after, the original, and that’s an edge – sort of like what distinguishes the official sports league websites from all the other sports sites that are out there (scores and stats are commodity content, after all).  People like that – getting the original as long as the original lives up to its reputation (anyone think Hyrdox are better than Oreo’s?  Seriously?).  The inventor has a head start and it’s a small business.  Why blow the profits on enforcing the potentially unenforceable hundreds of miles away from your base of operation?  We don’t take the time often enough to think about the real value behind an argument made in principle.  What fees might come in from licensing the name to a bakery in LA?  What might it cost to get those fees?

I’ve never had a cronut.  I might even break my general eating habits to try one next time I’m in NYC (assuming I can get one).  What I won’t do – and what you shouldn’t either – is sacrifice smart business thinking over some grandiose idea.  Be better, be smarter, and you’ll reap the rewards.  You agree?

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January 11, 2013 · 9:48 am

Seeds

For our Foodie Friday Fun today, let’s spend a moment on seeds.

Sunflower seeds

Sunflower seeds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I realize that seeds probably aren’t the first thing on your radar screen when you’re contemplating snack foods.  Too bad.  Seeds are nutrient-dense and are filled with phytosterols, these things in plants that are as effective as many of the prescription drugs a lot of folks are taking to lower cholesterol.   I’m a fan – pumpkin seeds are the best thing in my book about carving those gourds around Halloween, and no baseball player has gone through their career without chomping in a bunch of sunflower seeds at some point.  I’m not sure many of them think about how they’re full of antioxidants to protect against UV damage from playing ball in the sun, however.  I also don’t think many of us consider hummus as ground sesame seeds (well, the tahini used to make hummus is exactly that) and we tend to throw seeds from fruits such as papaya away when in actuality they’re really good for us.

Here’s the thing about eating seeds – they can, in some cases, be a lot of work.  After all, pumpkin seeds (if you’re making them yourself) need to be extracted, cleaned off, roasted and seasoned.  Sunflower seeds have to be extracted from their hard, inedible shell.  Maybe that extra bit of business to get them ready is why I find them so satisfying to eat.

The business point is pretty straightforward.  As managers we tend to focus on the fully developed plants when in fact the seeds might be better for us.  I focus a lot on potential when I’m hiring or promoting, and that’s not just on junior people.  I’m looking to see if there’s a seed somewhere that might even be better than the plant I’m seeing.  It’s not jut solving the immediate need (hunger) but looking to the future as well (health).

What seeds are you eating?

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