Comfort food continues to be a big draw for guests right now. As you serve up warm winter dishes, consider what items help you generate the most benefit from your inventory and labor. What is simple to prepare without skilled staff? What is a good for a crowd – yet also presents well when frozen and served later? What will allow you to use ingredients that you also use in salads, appetizers, sides and other entrées? Elevating your menu items doesn’t require complex combinations of ingredients. The addition of a single premium ingredient can transform an ordinary appetizer into something memorable or justify a higher price point for an entrée. In fact, making these small enhancements to your menu is an easy way to help you make a popular item that much more profitable – and allow it to earn its place on your menu. The National Restaurant Association recently published its annual What’s Hot forecast for the coming year, highlighting the ingredients and approaches it expects to see in the industry in 2023. Included in these trends is an anticipated continuation of the blending of dayparts as consumers spend more time working from home or from places other than the office and eating at odd hours as a result. So in addition to regular mealtimes, the in-between times – happy hour or snack times, for example – continue to be important to attracting guests. Restaurants that may have played down those times of the day before may now be looking for menu options to lift business during those periods, not to mention staff to cover the orders that come in. At the same time, however, one of the top three macro trends in the 2023 forecast was menu streamlining. More than before, restaurants face having to do more with less when it comes to the ingredients they weave into the menu. An ingredient must work hard – not simply as a featured player in an entrée, but also as a supporting player in several other dishes in different menu categories. Yet those dishes must be different enough to make the menu sufficiently interesting to guests that they are motivated to order from restaurants at a time when their money isn’t going as far. Restaurant operators are doing a delicate dance right now to find the right mix of dishes on their menu. The ingredients that can elevate a dish – but also disappear into it by becoming something new when combined with different spices, sauces and textures – can help operators spread their inventory as far as it needs to go right now. Recent research from the NPD Group found that breakfast traffic has been growing at U.S. restaurants and was within 1 percent of recovering its pre-pandemic levels. Quick-service restaurants capture the vast majority of breakfast traffic – 87 percent of it – so if you’re looking for ways to build business in this daypart, consider how you might entice guests with offerings that can be enjoyed on the go, or which can travel easily to home or office. That’s particularly true as many people have resumed their pre-pandemic schedule, along with the eating habits that go with it. Do you serve many vegan or vegetarian guests? Even if your answer is no, your clientele may still crave dairy-free foods. A recent survey of consumers in the U.S. and U.K. found that of those who purchase dairy-free foods, nearly 60 percent did not consider themselves vegan. They may simply want to incorporate more plant-based foods into their flexitarian diets. Offering dairy-free alternatives – and thinking beyond the beverage menu to include your appetizers, entrées and desserts – can help. At a time when ingredients’ availability can be unpredictable, changing up the experience of your menu can be as simple as adjusting the grain at the foundation of a dish. For maximum impact of your pasta dishes, pair the sauce or dressing of each item with a pasta shape that will best amplify its flavors. Consider orzo to add subtle bulk to soups or salads, or use it as a risotto stand-in. Pair fettucine or other ribbon-shaped pastas with richer, meaty sauces, and thinner strands like vermicelli with oil- or cream-based sauces. Have a special sauce you’d like to show off? A pasta like lumache will hold the sauce in its ridges and capture even more of it in its curved, hollow center, ensuring you’re serving up a plate of perfect bites. Last year, 62 percent of U.S. households (or 79 million) bought plant-based products, up from 61 percent (or 77 million) in 2020, according to the Plant-Based Food Institute. Further, the percentage of consumers purchasing multiple times within the plant-based category grew from 78 percent to 79 percent in the same time frame. The increasing cost of meat, as well as growing consumer awareness of its environmental impacts, were driving the charge toward plant-based alternatives both at home and in restaurants. Now, some nuances are emerging about consumer demand for plant-based meat that may alter the landscape for the restaurant operators serving it. In short, it may not be the draw for flexitarians that it once was. New research from Deloitte found that the appeal of plant-based meat may have reached a saturation point. The research found a decline in the percentage of consumers willing to pay a premium for plant-based meat as opposed to conventional varieties, as well a decline in the attitudes of consumers toward plant-based meat’s sustainability and assumed health benefits. As you consider what to put on the menu, foods that are plant-based (both naturally so and not) are still likely to continue to be a draw. Just anticipate that your guests may scrutinize the plant-based meat on your menu – and may draw a line on costs that’s well below what it would be for the alternative. In recent months, you’ve likely had to adapt to an ever-shifting array of ingredients. Your favorite brands or even broad categories of items may be inaccessible due to escalating prices and supply chain problems. So what can you do to maximize what you do have? Channel the creativity you would lend to the finishing touches of a dish and consider the potential of your pantry. What simple, readily available ingredients can you transform with different preparation methods into something exciting, unexpected and different from what your guests are apt to prepare for themselves at home? While the number of people who must avoid gluten remains small, about 20 percent of consumers try to reduce or eliminate gluten in their diets simply because they believe it is a healthy choice. As this has happened, the flavor and nutritional profiles of gluten-free products have exploded, making gluten-free items more interesting menu choices. Seeds, nuts, beans, fruits and vegetables now serve as the foundation for gluten-free flours. On your menu, how can the tastes, textures and nutrients across the full range of gluten-free flours complement ingredients throughout your menu? The past couple of years have brought about a shift in what – and when – consumers eat. While they have hurried back to restaurant dining rooms for conventional meals, they have also embraced snacking in a new way. Eating several mini meals throughout the day is just about as common as eating three squares. A recent Nation’s Restaurant News report notes the growth in small plates and shareable items on menus around the country, including savory items like deviled-egg flights to sweet items like fried cookie dough bites. As a result of consumers’ greater openness to smaller, shareable plates, the boundaries between dayparts have come down. Most any new idea can find a place on the menu. This change opens up opportunities for restaurants looking to adjust opening hours, pivot to new formats, launch inventive limited-time offers, or simply entice people to order at different times so an operator can spread the lunch and dinner rush more evenly across the day (and perhaps make do with less labor). Focusing on snacks and shareable items also helps restaurants emphasize the experience of enjoying restaurant food with others – something which, during these times of high inflation, can help entice consumers to order from a restaurant instead of preparing food at home. |
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