Tag Archives: Food industry

July 27, 2012 · 9:03 am

Off The Menu

It’s a classic scene from “When Harry Met Sally.” Harry orders “a number 3.” Sally asks for  something that’s not exactly off the menu but not exactly a number that’s on it:

GLENDALE, CA - JUNE 21: A Domino's Pizza rest...

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I’d like the Chef’s Salad, please, with oil and vinegar on the side, and the apple pie a la mode … but I’d like the pie heated, and I don’t want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it’s real. If it’s out of a can, then nothing.

I’m not sure why that popped into my head as our Foodie Friday Fun this week even if it does seem to be one of the most true scenes I know (and to preserve familial bliss I’m going to leave that there).  However, it does raise a good business point:  customers that order dishes that aren’t on the menu.  Most restaurants will accommodate a reasonable request if they have the ingredients and it’s not the dinner rush.  Substituting chicken for veal or leaving the anchovies off a salad isn’t a big deal.  Even national chains have secret menu items that aren’t on the posted menu but regular customers order all the time.  My favorite comes from my favorite burger chain, Fat Burger.  It’s called The Hypocrite and is a veggie burger topped with bacon.

I bring this up because if any of us want to foster success we need to let people order things that aren’t on the menu and to honor their requests as best we can.  It seems obvious but pay attention to how many “one size fits all” products and services you encounter out there.  Too many in a time when there are very few mass markets any more.

I can hear some of you grumbling that Apple doesn’t behave that way but I think if you reflect on some of their product history (the iPhone antenna issue, for example), they do adjust to meet customers’ needs.  An organization’s ability to let customers put their own spin on things from time to time is a secret ingredient every pantry should stock.

What have you ordered that wasn’t on the menu?  How did the organization meet your needs?

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July 6, 2012 · 8:12 am

Mr. Roboto Comes To Cook

For our Foodie Friday Fun, today’s topic is the delicate balance between being consistent and being boring.  What spurred the thinking on this topic was, in fact, a food-related story that comes to us from The Daily Mail’s website.  It seems that in China they have a number of restaurants operated almost entirely by robots.  The machines do pretty much everything – cook the food, serve the drinks, take the orders, you name it:

If you pay a visit to this restaurant, in downtown Harbin, China, you will find 18 robots – from a waitress to a cooker to an usher – ready to ensure your dining experience is perfect.  The restaurant has 18 types of robots, each gliding out of the kitchen to provide your dish, with specialty robots including a dumpling robot and a noodle robot.

I’ve written before about the need to provide our customers and clients with a consistent, predictable experience yet I find this story repugnant.  I’m sure the food is uniformly something – good?  Bad?  Mediocre?  No, I guess the word soul-less comes to mind.  And that’s the business point today.

Cooking and serving food to another human being is not just another piece of manufacturing.  When I think of robots I think of them building cars, not canapés.  Oh sure, there are automated processes throughout the food industry, but they’re for packaged goods and supermarket foods, not restaurants.   What does this have to do with your business?  Think about how many business transactions involve us talking to a machine (I count email on that list – it’s more machine-like than human, lacking nuance and expression) or machines speaking to one another (digital media buying more often these days, for example).

Our clients want to see the humanity.  I’m willing to bet most clients and customers are willing to sacrifice a bit (and ONLY a bit) of perfection for the human touch.  The smile they get when they’re greeted by name.  The new photo of their kids they get to show off.  Business isn’t just an exchange of something of value for compensation – when it’s done well there are a number of intangibles that no robot can offer.

So ask yourself this.  Are you acting like a robot or like a human?  If it’s the former, maybe you ought to contemplate the differences that make us the latter.  You with me?

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May 4, 2012 · 10:18 am

Food Pairing And New Thinking

If I say “peanut butter,” you’ll probably respond “jelly.”  It’s one of those tried and true flavor combinations that one can’t go too far wrong in serving, even if you might be criticized for being a cheap skate (unless you’re serving 6 year olds – they love that!)  I found something that deals with that notion – flavor combinations – and it’s our Food Friday Fun topic this week.  Of course, it also provides a bit of a business lesson as well.

Peanut butter is a semi-solid and can therefor...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The thing I found is a web site called Foodpairing.com:

Foodpairing is a source of inspiration that allows chefs, bartenders, and others in the food industry to create new combinations of ingredients for dishes or drinks. Foodpairing is not based on intuition or existing recipes, but on science, providing an objective overview of possible pairings. It is based on the principle that foods can be combined when they share major flavor components.

In other words, this is a tool, based on fact, that helps creativity in the food business.  It gets us beyond our own thoughts (and prejudices) about tastes in ways that we wouldn’t necessarily think of.  As they put it, “When you are creating a new menu and you know that something is missing, but you don’t know what, Foodpairing will inspire you.”  I signed up and it’s interesting how it helps with your thinking.  Which is, of course, the business point.

You’ve probably come across people – managers, executives, even peers – who are really set in their ways and can’t break through the thinking that keeps them anchored to what may be sub-optimal places.  They can’t see new methods or new business possibilities, maybe because they’ve had bad experiences in the past when they’ve tried to break through.  The difference is that the food tool is based on scientific research – on facts.  A lot of us get good, creative , new business thoughts but base our thinking on hope, on a narrow perspective, or on other factors that can’t be the basis for moving forward.  Inspiration is one thing but it needs to be vetted (perspiration!) to turn into gold.

What gets your creative juices going?

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