SURVEY: How Does Your Restaurant Use Food Delivery Apps?
For the past month, we've been publishing a series of posts on restaurant delivery, everything from analyzing the best third-party apps, to doing DIY delivery, to insights into delivery execution. Now we want to hear from you. We want to know what your restaurant is doing for delivery, what you use, and how it's working out. We would love to hear your feedback! Not only will it help you know what the industry is trending but it’ll help inform us of future blog posts, too!
DID YOU KNOWS…
A Meatless Future?
A market report by A.T. Kearney predicts that people will be eating mostly lab-grown meat or plant-based “meat” options by 2040. The prediction is based partly on the population’s growing concern with climate change and environmental damage but also not wanting to give up their meat-eating diets. Meanwhile, plant-based “meats” – like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods – grew by 24% between 2017 and 2018. There are still some technical and logistical hurdles to overcome before we’re all eating lab meat, however.
How Cruise Ship Pollution Compares to Cars
It's well known that cruise ships cause enormous levels of environmental damage but a new report has now shown just how dirty they really are. The shocking data was published by TransportEnvironment.org last week and it found that 203 cruise ships docking in ports such as Dubrovnik, Marseille and Hamburg in 2017 emitted substantially more SOx during their stay than all passenger cars in those cities for the whole year.
The King of Endorsements
Largely thanks to a decade-spanning $300 million deal with Japanese clothing company Uniqlo, Roger Federer was the athlete with the highest endorsement earnings for the second year running, according to Forbes. While a deal of that volume is probably unprecedented for an athlete at Federer’s age, his longevity paired with his demeanor off and (mostly) on the tennis court, make him the ideal brand ambassador. Judging by the long list of his sponsors, ranging from Mercedes-Benz to Rolex, it would appear that many people agree on this.
THE APPRENTICE GOES TO THE CLOUD
Why it matters to you: The ACF is now offering online/mobile training for apprenticeships.
If your kitchen does more than drop wings and fries in canola oil, then you might be interested in some changes in the American Culinary Federation (ACF) apprenticeship program. The 90-year-old chef’s organization is now offering online training in both mobile and desktop formats. Their stated goal is to eliminate barriers to participation caused by location. Culinary apprentices need no longer move to a short list of large cities to get the highest level of training. It’s a positive sign of the times that an old school organization like the ACF is taking a new school approach to spreading their skills and we all stand to benefit from their vision.
Programs like the apprenticeship program are intended to improve the quality of the labor pool and create more “professional” chefs. Depending on your staffing needs, this program could further facilitate your own efforts to improve your kitchen staff’s skills and quality of their performance. Since many of your team can’t afford the costs of formal culinary education, cloud-based programs like the ACF’s Apprenticeship path make it possible for them to expand their abilities. This is a democratization for everyone that has ever considered turning their kitchen job into a career -- and we all stand to benefit from that fact.
[Source: Restaurant Business Online]
MAKING APPLE PIE GREAT AGAIN
Why it matters to you: Try a new dessert and maybe create a signature item that actually drives traffic.
At The Daily Rail, we rarely discuss recipes, but we couldn’t resist with this amazing Grilled Apple Pie Foil Packs dessert. The sales of dessert represent an amazing add on opportunity to any check and this dessert screams signature item. You may remember the cast iron baked cookie dessert that took the industry by storm a few years ago. This recipe is another cool presentation that people will love and likely visit specifically to have during a visit to your restaurant. As we said, we don’t often discuss recipes, but in cases that prove a point about signature items, we are happy to make an exception. In our industry, being known for a specific item is about as good as it gets from a marketing perspective.
Ask the guys that own Gino’s and Pat’s if they think cheesesteak sandwiches as a signature item have improved their business? While the answer is obvious, too often operators just do the same things they’ve always done and never explore anything new. With the Internet available to find cool options that will drive traffic using food as the central experience, you can change things up without major testing to find that signature item. Take a chance and run the Grilled Apple Pie Foil Pack dessert. If no one wants it, then try another recipe. No matter what happens, you’ll be varying your menu, engaging guests, and creating interest in dessert where you might not have before. Nothing ventured, nothing gained -- as the axiom goes.
[Source: Delish]
