SheeFood

House Dressings That Rock

SPIN! Pizza (Kansas City) is one of my favorite places to eat. The pizza is nice, but it’s the Sonoma Salad with blood orange vinaigrette I’m talking about. I could swim in the dressing. I’ve driven there for the single purpose of buying a container of it (for nearly the price of a pizza). And then there’s a great Korean restaurant nearby with another dressing that drives me wild. When I’m done with that salad, I often ask for extra lettuce to lap up the remaining dressing in the bowl.

This obsession with restaurant signature salad dressings led me to ask the editor of National Culinary Review if I could write an article on it. I wondered what restaurants consider when they develop these dressings and if many of them sell it. I thought it would be a great way for restaurants to make some extra money.

The article is out (to the right-House Dressings), and it’s targeted to the restaurant operator. My biggest learning was that it’s not such a hot idea to go gangbusters selling the dressing. Homemade salad dressing doesn’t have the preservatives of supplier-sourced dressing, and therefore it spoils quickly—sometimes within two or three days.

 Here are some other interesting random things I learned about restaurant house dressings:

•  Though selling the dressing might not be the best idea, if there’s a spice mixture used in the dressing, why not sell that mixture and attach the recipe for consumers to make the dressing at home? One chef does that.
• The best signature house dressings are middle-of-the-road in flavor and are not created to fulfill all of a chef’s wild and crazy flavor dreams. It has to appeal to 70-90% of consumers, not just an adventurous handful. The dressing will have the right balance of sweet, sour and salty.
• Popular right now are classic dressings with a twist, like ranch or Italian with popular flavorings, like bacon or chili.
• It can still be considered a homemade dressing if a chef purchases ranch, for instance, and adds extra ingredients to it, like a roasted pepper mixture.
• Some well-known chefs like to do dressing development on the side for other restaurants, just to use their creative juices. SPIN! did it with its signature salad dressings. James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Smith of Michael Smith Restaurant and Extra Virgin, both in Kansas City, developed them.
• Restaurants wanting to cut down on the sugar in the dressing recipe can use such vegetable purees as carrot or sweet onion. They are naturally sweet. The puree also acts as a binder.
• Yogurt can work in place of mayo or heavy cream to cut down on fat and calories.

Tell me what you think about signature salad dressings.

Jody

Talk About Oatmeal

Anyone interested in trying out the new oatmeal? McDonald’s oatmeal TV commercials make it look absolutely delicious. But I look at it another way. The behemoth chain is shining a huge spotlight on a really healthy, trendy item. Because of that, I’ll bet Quaker Oats oatmeal sales will spike and other quick-serve restaurants will add it to the menu.

Actually, specialty establishments have already been quietly adding oatmeal to their lineup. Starbuck’s started it in 2008, causing others to follow, like Jamba Juice and Caribou Coffee. Fast-casual chain Corner Bakery also offers oatmeal.

In fact, according to Mintel Menu Insights, oatmeal listed on menus as its own item (not as an ingredient) has increased 286% in the past three years. In December 2007, there were only seven incidences of oatmeal listed as a menu item dish. Here’s the way the trend looks:

Incidences of restaurant oatmeal menu mentions over time

	Q4 2007	Q4 2008	Q4 2009	Q4 2010
Oatmeal	7	11	17	27

Source: Mintel Menu Insights

It’s good to get this at-a-glance look at oatmeal that ends just before McDonald’s made its grand introduction and as quick-serves are ramping up their breakfast menus to increase sales during that underdeveloped daypart. We should keep our eye on Burger King, Hardee’s and Wendy’s.

While we’re at it, we should look at the ingredients that are along for the ride with oatmeal that add color, flavor and interest. Staying with the healthy theme, the fruit industry stands to gain. Consider the apples, raisins and dried cranberries McDonald’s is topping its oatmeal with. That’s huge for those industries. Dried fruit and nuts are the natural benefactors. (Think of Starbuck’s oatmeal.)

As for Quaker Oats, sales have not boomed so far for the company. It is developing new products to try to capitalize on the restaurant oatmeal fame. But I predict that sales will do better as consumers watch those McDonald’s television commercials and consider that they could make that delicious item at home.

What do you think?

Jody

Gluten-free is Where it's at

Remember the low-carb craze? Who could forget? I was editor of Produce Concepts magazine at the time, and the topic was easy cover-story material for me—before many other magazines caught on. I’ll never forget the photographer tripping and dropping/breaking his camera while shooting that cover photo at Ruby Tuesday’s.

The low-carb craze of yesterday has become the gluten-free frenzy of today. This time around, restaurants are better armed. Before, there wasn’t a mindset to consider, let alone call out, a nutritional characteristic of any menu item. The choices were take it or leave it.

Now restaurants have a better appetite for nutritional trends and a menu plan to tie into them. They are poised. Examples:

• Uno Pizza has addressed gluten by developing three gluten-free pizzas. And it works perfectly in Uno’s menu plan. Its website lists a “menu category” and a “dietary category.” Under that banner, visitors can’t complain that their needs have been neglected. There’s not only a gluten-free section, but carbohydrate, cholesterol, dietary fiber, sodium, protein, fat and calorie sections.
• Ruby Tuesday’s has an extensive “Allergen/Sensitivity Menu Guide” online with separate sections for those with egg, fish, gluten/wheat, milk, MSG, peanut/tree nut, shellfish, and soy allergies.
• Subway began testing two gluten-free menu items in Texas this month (January 2011).

Kudos to Uno and Subway, because their main menu items would typically have gluten in them. So they had some work to do. Some other restaurants must have thought, “Oh boy. Can we ever jump on this one. Our items don’t have gluten in them anyway, so all we need to do is point out our gluten-free items.” Notice Tossed restaurant. Salads are their thing. So now they have a menu section of 14 gluten-free salads. (Wouldn’t that just be tossed salads without croutons?)

Big Bowl has added a gluten-free section to its menu, which is pretty much its menu items that don’t have noodles. It must have been in response to P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, which was among the first chains to come out with a gluten-free menu.

Just for fun, a look at Mintel Menu Insights data show the top 10 menu item claims at restaurants by the incidences of their mentions from Q3 2009-Q3 2010. These are not just health claims, but any kind of claims. The top three claims are vegetarian/vegan, signature and classic. But look at the third column for the claims’ percentage of increase in the past year. Gluten-free menu claim mentions increased 84%.  

 Top 10 menu item claims by incidences from Q3 2009-Q3 2010 

	Q3 2009	Q3 2010	Change Q3 2009 - Q3 2010
	#	#	%
Vegetarian/Vegan	942	1,033	10
Signature	787	1,119	42
Classic	627	1,161	85
Fresh	572	663	16
Gluten-Free	413	761	84
Gourmet	410	531	30
Traditional	280	387	38
Homemade	281	293	4
Healthy	213	224	5
Low Fat	209	200	-4
Number of Items	46,123	50,504	9

Source: Mintel Menu Insights

It will be interesting to see what the next nutritional wave will be. Whatever it is, forward-thinking chains are positioning themselves to jump on board quickly, rather than waste time speculating as to whether the issue of the hour is a trend or a fad.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

Time for Hardee's to Change its Ads

Call me crazy, but I don’t think sex is a good way to sell hamburgers. (Visualize Hardee’s here.)

I’m not going to editorialize much further on this here. After all, Hardee’s has been at this for several years.

The reason I bring it up now is because I learned this past week that the parent company of Hardee’s, CKE Restaurants, has just changed advertising agencies. Could this mean the end of sexy women going at it with juicy hamburgers? I certainly hope so. In my opinion, Hardee’s needs a new, consistent image. I close my eyes and think of Hardee’s, and my brain takes me to the smiley face star logo and the raunchy commercials. How can those two images occupy the same thought?

Ads should carry forward the careful image the restaurant wants customers to land on in their minds. To illustrate, let me point out a few that work:

• Panera Bread. In the past year, it developed a TV ad for “the making of a perfect panini.” The commercial gives close-ups of the fresh, natural ingredients that make up the panini combined with a soothing voiceover and background string music. It gives an aura of excellence, which is in keeping with the brand’s image of wholesomeness.
• Chili’s. The chain, or rather its customers, have been suffering withdrawal from the 2-for-1 price meal promotions it was popular for during the recession. (It drew in customers, but did nothing for profits. Yet without the promotion, customers aren’t coming back.) So in the past year, its advertising has had to convey two things: price value and a quality-food image. In a 30-second ad, the chain first built a “fresh” image by focusing on one menu item, its Quesadilla Explosion Salad, with all the fresh, natural ingredients that go in it. Then it shifted to a limited-time-only offer of an entrée and appetizer for only $9.99. I see the thought and image-building strategy in that ad.
• IHOP. Its “Come hungry, leave happy” tagline is great. Going along with that, the chain works hard at being seasonal, a growing proposition for restaurants. Each season it launches a limited-time promotion for something that is on target with that season. It did it in only 15 seconds in one ad this fall. A man in his front yard raking leaves was interrupted as a crowd ran across his yard, through the leaves, scattering the raked pile. The scene set the seasonal stage for IHOP’s “fall festival of flavors.” The crowd running through his leaves was on its way to IHOP for the three limited-time menu items pictured in the ad.

These ads all show purpose. And what I’m saying is, I hope Hardee’s new advertising agency will see the light and figure out what the chain should be promoting and do it right. Let’s quit disrespecting and alienating women and get with the program.

What do you think?

Jody