Tag Archives: Foodie

December 19, 2014 · 11:11 am

Learning From Portmanteaus

Foodie Friday, and today we’ll start with a word that may be new to some of you: portmanteau. A portmanteau is a combination of the most recognizable parts of two words. We have many of them in the food world and use them to label a host of new things – utensils, dishes, even fruits. You probably use them all the time without knowing what they’re called.

Ever ordered a cheeseburger? Portmanteau – cheese and hamburger. Ever used a spork? A spoon and a fork. Cronuts, frappuccinos, Clamato, even Tex-Mex all qualify, as do pluots, tangelos, and turduckens. So stop petting your labradoodle (see what I did there?) and think about what those food creations can show us in the broader business sense.

Many of these things were evolutionary.  Adding cheese to a hamburger or putting some tines on a spoon (or was it enlarging and rounding the center of a fork?) was something I’d call part of a gradual change and more of an adaptation than an invention.  We do that a lot in business and it’s a smart way to address the ongoing needs of your current customer base.  The flip side of that is revolutionary change, something that’s entirely new and probably unexpected – the cronut falls into that category.  When we create revolutionary change we run the risk of alienating all of those who love what we’re doing but it’s probably the best way to attract a customer base that has ignored us thus far.  In my mind, great businesses do both types of change – evolutionary and revolutionary – because stasis isn’t an option and consumers are always looking for new and better.

Some food portmanteaus are just bad marketing.  The P’zone – a pizza calzone – is a freaking calzone and neither revolutionary nor evolutionary.  Tofurky (tofu and turkey)?  Really?  If you’re foregoing meat, why label a product as if it is the very thing the customer is avoiding?  That said, those things represent the notion that we constantly need to innovate.  The most successful companies often do nothing more than execute a new twist on an existing product or service better than their competitors.  It might be revolutionary, it might be evolutionary and it might be called a portmanteau.  I call it good business.  You?

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December 12, 2014 · 11:13 am

Finely Chopped Onions And Business

Foodie Friday, and this week it’s about chopping onions.  No, it’s not a screed on how cutting up onions relates to being in business without crying although that’s not a bad idea for some Friday down the road.  This week, it’s about a legendary chef – Marco Pierre White – and his technique for chopping onions more finely than you’ve ever chopped them before.  There are practical reasons for doing so as he explains. The video I’ve embedded demonstrates his technique, but it’s actually something he says in the video that’s our subject today.

First, the chopping lesson:

Did you hear what Chef White had to say as part of his demonstration?

‘Perfection is lots of little things done well.’

He picked that up from Ma Gastronomie by Fernand Point. He is the father of modern French cuisine. It’s a great business reminder too.  We talk a lot in this space about many “big” things but the reality is that we can’t ignore the most basic skills if we’re to continue to improve as businesspeople.  We might be focused on the big idea, but if our basic writing skills are inferior, the brilliance of our idea won’t be expressed.

Chopping onions is probably the most basic of cooking skills.  I’ve seen friends spend a full two minutes chopping an onion when had they learned the proper technique and practiced they would be able to do so in under 30 seconds.  It’s a little thing, but improving all of the little things is sometimes the only way to improve the whole.  As an aside, it’s a heck of a lot more fun when the tedious things go quickly and efficiently both in the kitchen and in the office.

Striving for continuous improvement is a noble goal.  Our focus should be on big steps forward.  The way to get our businesses to take those steps just might be through improving all the little things, especially when we’ve done a good job on the big ones already.  After all, a team that keeps hitting singles and not making many outs eventually scores a lot of ones, even without any home runs.

You agree?

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December 5, 2014 · 2:07 pm

Sneaky Is Stupid

Foodie Friday, if you’re not too stuffed from all of the past week’s consumption.  I came across an article in The Guardian which pulled back the covers on how some restaurants improve their margins by cutting corners in sneaky ways.  What prompted them to write the piece was the travails of The Olive Garden we featured here on the screed a few Fridays ago.  Not surprisingly, the myopic practices going on there is just the tip of a much larger set of things restaurants do. 

A few examples: restaurants will often serve glasses with a half-inch to an inch of foam on top because leaving that much foam can save them around 20 beers per keg.  They will use heavier, high-grade silverware for steaks to give the perception of a higher grade of meat.  They will cut back portion sizes and buy smaller plates.  If they cut an ounce out of a burger they’ll buy smaller buns (something I think they learned from the package goods folks).  Naturally, prices don’t change.

The list goes on but it raises the obvious business point.  As I wrote in September, many companies lose their core identity in the chase for revenues which is bad.  Hurting the products that got you to this point is worse.  Smarter companies do one of several things.  If you’re Apple, you maintain higher prices and don’t mistake cost for value.  If you’re Honda or Toyota or Nissan, you create separate brands (Acura, Lexus, Infiniti) that allow you to charge for a better product while permitting you to change the “standard” brand however you’d like.  No smart brand is sneaky.

What dumb companies do is to cut corners. Successful companies are always looking for creative ways to protect the bottom line without giving the impression that quality is going down with it.  Imagine what happens when your current customer base picks up on the smaller burgers or questionable shrimp.  Legitimate changes – repositioning menu items to increase sales or example – don’t affect quality.  Anything that does may increase your per table margin but you’ll be seating far fewer tables over time – even if you’re not in the restaurant business.

Make sense?

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