Tag Archives: Strategic management

November 3, 2017 · 12:31 pm

Does Your Business Serve Pu-Pu Platters?

This Foodie Friday, I’m inspired by the memory of a long-closed (by the Health Department as it turns out) restaurant called South Seas. It served very large “exotic” drinks – Zombies, Scorpion Bowls, the full range of tiki bar delights – and the first pu-pu platter I’d ever encountered.

My high school friends and I would often meet up at South Seas to gather in front of a glowing pu-pu platter. The center was a grill, fueled by Sterno I think, on which we could cook something from the mound of delights surrounding it. Of course, everything had been fried and I was never quite sure why one would want to further cook an egg roll, but it was very foreign and wonderful. Of course, since they would serve both the food and the drinks to anyone (the drinking age was 18 but our 18th birthdays were a few years away – sorry Mom), I might be misrecalling how good the food was, but I really loved it.

It’s the pu-pu platter that triggered the business thought. While most of us had after-school or weekend jobs of some sort, none of us really had a ton of disposable income for food. The Pu-pu platter solved that problem by being a cost-effective alternative to having to order several different plates. We could graze as we saw fit without having to commit to one dish. As I think about it now, many other types of cuisine offer their version of a pu-pu plater: the mixed antipasto (hot or cold) most Italian places serve, the popularity of tapas places  (you’re sort of constructing your own pu-pu platter as your order many different little plates), heck, even the canape platters they pass around a cocktail parties are pu-pu platters in my mind. And I think there’s something your business can take away from that.

The pu-pu platter or antipasto plate lets the customer sample multiple facets of your kitchen. It lets them understand the quality and variety of what you offer without their having to make a major commitment. That’s not a bad idea for any business. Free consultations and low- or no-cost trial periods are one way to deliver this. Offering a little bit of everything, much like a country store does, might be another. I hasten to add that anything you do offer needs to be of the same high-quality as your main product or service offerings.

When I see a pu-pu platter on a menu these days, I’m still tempted to order one so I can have a little taste of everything. Keeping a pu-pu platter mindset might just be a way to grow your business, don’t you think?

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food, Growing up

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 27, 2017 · 11:36 am

You’re Bacon Me Crazy

This Foodie Friday, I come to you with a perfect example of how businesses often get things wrong. I hear you wondering how anything involving bacon can go wrong, but stick with me here and I think you’ll understand my distress.

English: Uncooked pork belly bacon strips disp...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was widely reported this week that scientists in China have created 12 healthy pigs with 24% less body fat. If you care to read all about it, the results were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I didn’t bother to read it because it makes me both sad and angry. From my perspective, most pork we get in this country is already too lean. Fat is flavor, and most of the pork we get has very little. The exception is bacon.

I use bacon the way many cooks do. Sure, I bake it and eat it as part of a full breakfast (put a little Old Bay on those bad boys before you bake them – a revelation!). Rendered down, it yields lovely fat in which to saute your aromatics and get any recipe off to a great start. Wrapped around a lean cut of meat, it prevents that cut from drying out. And who doesn’t love to toss some lardons into salads, omelets, pastas, grilled vegetables, or potatoes? Lean bacon defeats the entire purpose of the cut!

OK, most of the above was a little tongue in cheek, but there is a real point to be made here. When we try to “improve” a product we just might end up destroying it. Lean bacon is a solution in search of a problem, and that is the kiss of death to any offering most of the time. Putting aside the issues many people have with genetically engineered food (this was achieved using CRISPR), there are already many lean alternatives to bacon. OK, it might be a stretch to call them “bacon” but they exist.

None of us can afford to waste time figuring out a problem for something we’ve produced. The process works the other way around. Listen for problems that your intended customer base is having and then find a solution. Much of the time, successful entrepreneurs had the problem themselves, found a solution, and then helped others with the same problem. The camera phone, for example, came about when a new father wanted to send a photo from the delivery room (true story).

As you’re moving along in your business, ask yourself if you’re solving peoples’ problems or if you’re trying to find a use for your solution. Hopefully the former!

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, food, Huh?

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 20, 2017 · 11:07 am

They Don’t Make It Like That Anymore

This Foodie Friday I am going to run the risk of sounding like the grumpy old man I’m slowly becoming. Rather than admonishing you all to get off my lawn, I want to share the sentiment I had a week or so ago as I fired up my smoker. My smoker, or as it’s lovingly known, “The Beast”, was made by the New Braunfels Smoker Company at least 20 years ago, How do I know that? Well, that’s today’s food and business thought.

The Beast is made of heavy steel that’s quite thick and it weighs well over 100 pounds even without my usual load of meats inside. As I was cleaning up the old Rancho Deluxe to get ready for its sale, the smoker was one of the very few things that I was adamant about saving for the move. Why was that, especially when I also gave away or junked a Caja China and two other grills? In a sentence:

Because they don’t make them like that anymore.

The New Braunfels Smoker Company was sold to Char-Broil 20 years ago. Almost immediately, the quality of the products went downhill, and this was especially noticeable on the gauge of the steel. The steel was thinner and didn’t hold heat as well. When a rust spot developed, it was difficult to sand and paint it without almost going through the area that has rusted. The products were similar in design and name, but that was about all that was the same. The bbq forums, home to serious meat smoking aficionados like me, were deluged with negative comments and, more importantly to the business, better alternatives to what had been a superior line of smokers.

This is something from which any business can learn. We’re always under pressure to improve our margins. Some folks look to cheaper materials, other to cheaper, less-skilled labor, and still others to cutting customer service. Sometimes we just skimp on quality control. While margins might improve, there is a strong chance that revenues will decline as the customer base figures out that “you’re not making it like that anymore.” As an Apple user, I recently switched to a Chromebook because my Mac OS isn’t as smooth and there are glitches that were never an issue before. For you cooks out there, Pyrex changed their formula and “new” Pyrex is not as good. Recent Craftsman tools, once the industry standard, are now made in China and aren’t nearly as good. I can go on and I’m sure you can as well.

If you’re successful, resist the temptation to cut corners. People notice (so does your staff). Don’t be part of a conversation that claims you don’t make it like that anymore.

1 Comment

Filed under Consulting, food, Huh?

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,