By Joseph Antonio, Contributing Editor
It used to be that finding a good meal was as easy as driving to a favorite restaurant or, for some, indulging their taste buds at the newest and trendiest restaurant to hit the block. But with the economic climate the way it is, many people are stepping down a wrung from where they used to dine and are eating at establishments that give them more value for their dollar—and increasingly, that “establishment" is their own home. They still crave the foods and flavors restaurants offer, but at a more-reasonable cost. As such, the foodservice industry has been crossing the boundaries of their historical categories—and even into retail—to help cater to today’s consumer desires.
Lessons from foodservice
No longer are the staples of fine-dining restaurants confined to the high end of the foodservice spectrum. Likewise, fast food isn’t relegated solely to multiunit chains. In today’s food society, you can actually find fine dining on the streets and sit down—albeit on a park bench or carried back to the office—to an elegantly designed fast-food concept. Local food trucks are now serving premium, restaurant-quality cuts of meat, poultry and seafood, and are using age-old artisanal methods instead of the deep-fried, gut-filling, premade and ready-to-assemble offerings of hot dogs, hamburgers and burritos that used to reign in the streets (nowadays, many of those dogs, burgers and burritos are decidedly upscale). Is this a culinary faux pas? Not by any means. It’s a result of the on-trend evolution related to the quality of food—and one that everyday consumers seek at a more-convenient level. As those trends trickle down to the retail level, we are seeing more foods like bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches), and fresh, fire-roasted salsas—and even locally made, small batch ice-cream.
In the recent past, restaurants tended to focus on labor savings that resulted in pre-made and pre-packaged ingredients that saved time and money. This resulted in food that was merely “assembled," thus giving the operators the ability to “hire down" on labor to cut costs. This became the norm and allowed chains to reach their goal of rapid expansion while maximizing profits. As a result, the quality of the food suffered because this short-sightedness failed to recognize the consumer’s affinity for quality.
Recently, there has been a movement in the restaurant industry to go back to offering higher-quality, scratch-made food as a way to gain back customers who voiced their disapproval by spending their money at other establishments that focused on quality and execution. Restaurant chains are now focusing on cooking in their kitchens again. Places like Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill in southern California are moving back to hand-breading their fish tacos: the cornerstone of the restaurant’s concept. Other chains like Panera Bread, which uses high-quality ingredients such as fire-roasted vegetables and organic chicken for their sandwiches, and Qdoba Mexican Grill, which involve the guests in the creative experience by making food to order in front of them, have succeeded by exceeding their customer’s expectations and offering a higher level quality of food and experience.
Translating inspirations
The challenge for the product developer on the retail side is to come up with compelling offerings that consumers will be excited to try, and flavorful enough for them to come back and buy again—flavor combinations that are seen at the restaurant level that can translate to retail, such as infusing Latin and Asian ingredients, or creating a dish using traditional French techniques with non-French ingredients. Retailers are also competing with restaurants that are offering their food in convenient, full-menu take out.
So where does the inspiration come from? And how do you translate the cooked-to-order, fresh and flavorful restaurant experience into a frozen, refrigerated or shelf-stable retail product?
New trends in food typically start in restaurants and trickle down to eventually end up on retail shelves. With that type of cycle, retailers continue to sit on the coattails of innovation and trends that emerge from the mainstream foodservice industry. It’s a constant challenge to recognize what the everyday restaurant clientele finds craveable and how to translate that into a cost-efficient product that can be commercialized and sold in the retail market.
While restaurants have a good degree of flexibility, the retail market is more rigid. In restaurants, new dishes can be offered immediately to discerning palates through specials and limited-time offers (LTOs) and, if not well received, can be taken off the menu right away. In the retail market, millions of dollars are sometimes at stake to get the right product out to consumers, and the necessary steps need to be taken to make sure that the risks are minimized. Tapping into the trends and conducting market research help reduce the chances of failure.
Some key insights to trends in the restaurant segment offer cues to product developers, laying the groundwork for new retail product R&D. These are the trends that capture consumer habits and ever-changing demographic profiles. Looking at it from a broad perspective, trends such as convenience, health, cultural diversity, restaurant quality and “chef-driven" food products should be considered when creating new foods for retail.
