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To Our Valued Subscribers:

In Like a Lion!! Here it is the beginning of March and for us in Chicago (and most of the Country) the Month is starting by roaring continued freezing temperatures, freezing rain and snow and oh yeah Tornadoes in the South. What a start!! The setbacks in having spring arrive early, had me reflect on a recent article I read authored by LaRae Quy an FBI undercover and counterintelligence agent who writes about overcoming setbacks. Here are two of her suggestions for recognizing and overcoming setbacks in life and business:

* Pinpoint where your fear of the setback is coming from. Once we call attention to our fears, we’re able to see them in a different, and often more objective, light. Once recognized take a deep breath and ask have I over reacted or is the fear justified? When you admit you have a fear you can address it.

* Expect the Worst! As entrepreneurs, leaders and business owners, you already know that setbacks are routine. The trick is to anticipate them. Ask yourself, “What is the worst that could happen?” That way you’re never surprised by what the day brings; instead, you’re prepared for it. This is not about pessimism, it’s about reality. Distinguish between setbacks and roadblocks. Setbacks can slow you down but won’t actually stop you. Roadblocks are like strips of flypaper — you get caught and they can threaten your progress. Because both setbacks and roadblocks are unavoidable, build extra fluff time into your daily schedule. If every last minute is chock full of meetings and deadlines, a little blunder or miscalculation can disrupt your entire day. Sound familiar??

Just using these two tools can really help you adjust and overcome setbacks. Give it a try!! Another tool to assist you is American Recruiters Global Foodservice News. This latest edition will have you looking toward the end of March going out as a lamb!! Enjoy!!

Craig Wilson

President

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Naturipe Farms Have Their Sights Set On Millennials and Gen Z

Naturipe Farms, a farmer-owned produce company that has valued their farmers, quality, and heritage since 1917, is speaking directly to Millennials and Gen Z with a rebrand that is as fresh as their berries.  Starting this month, consumers will begin to see a new logo, packaging, and in-store merchandising in grocery stores across the U.S. and Canada. The rebrand is a result of a comprehensive consumer research study that determined what Millennials and Gen Z – the largest demographic of shoppers – wanted to see from the Naturipe Farms brand. “We wanted our rebranding to be representative of our long history and current market research,” said CarrieAnn Arias, Naturipe Farms’ VP of Marketing, who led the initiative. “We knew, just like growing our berries, that we needed to take our time and carefully cultivate this rebrand. That started by listening directly to our customers.” Naturipe Farms’ year-long research study led them to highlight components of the brand that were not always immediately visible before. This includes: Communicating the berries’ freshness. When selecting produce, 89% of millennials and Gen Z participants surveyed said that “freshness” is their main decision driver. Freshness speaks not only to the quality of the product but also the look and feel of the product too. Emphasizing honesty and transparency. Consumers will now know the origin of their berries by the map and state represented on the label. “For more than 100 years, freshness has always been a top priority for us,” said Dwight Ferguson, President and CEO of Naturipe Farms. “Now we’re ensuring our brand stays fresh as well.”

The research findings also revealed the truthfulness in the name. Consumers that participated in this effort expressed that the Naturipe Farms name conveyed that the company’s products are “naturally ripened” or “allowed to ripen in nature.” “It’s gratifying to hear consumers see and appreciate the honesty in our name,” said Arias. “The elements of this rebrand clearly communicates the lush, fresh, ripened berries that we offer to our customers every day.” Additionally – and what may not come as a surprise to many – the study confirmed that Millennials and Gen Z are passionate about how brands treat the environment. Naturipe Farms is committed to reducing its impact on the environment and is currently exploring the best sustainability practices and innovations as part of their “Cultivate with Care” initiative. This means research in eco-friendly packaging, water conservation, and natural pest management. “We believe the work we are doing in 2019 will set the tone for our future, and the brand refresh is just the first element,” said Ferguson. “Consumers will hear more from Naturipe Farms, and we’re excited to show them what our great company is all about.”

The World Restaurant Awards in Paris Failed to Live up to its Progressive Promises

This week, I found myself amid the swells of restaurant high society, flanked by the head chef of one of my favorite New York restaurants, Dirt Candy, and someone who probably works in food PR. I sipped my champagne and took in the moment. I was in Paris, at what the organizers hoped to be the industry-defining party of the year. It was . . . fine. I had dressed up in my most passable party attire (Uniqlo blazer and thrifted tie) to attend the World Restaurant Awards–the first of its kind, despite the seemingly old and hackneyed name. (Couldn’t we find a better acronym than WRA?) The event bills itself as an updated, perhaps even woke, Michelin star-like gala. The events company IMG, along with journalists Joe Warwick and Andrea Petrini, spearheaded the event, with diversity being a focal point of its pitch. The evening was intended to honor unique and innovative fine dining restaurants around the world, judged by a panel of 50 men and 50 women. Sponsors included American Express and Gaggenau. The concept telegraphs fine dining’s innate sense of superiority while at the same time nodding to its very superfluousness. There’s an award for “restaurant of the year” presented alongside one for “tattoo-free chef.” It longs to be cheeky, self-deprecating, and yet still important. The reception took place at the Palais Brongniart, a cavernous and regal building that was once a stock exchange, in a room surrounded by columns and with a circular Laurent-Perrier (another sponsor) champagne bar at the center. Along the periphery were various culinary treats, mostly from Singapore (also a sponsor). Throughout the night, I found myself wondering—sometimes aloud to my date—whether such an awards ceremony even needs to exist. Do we need more pomp? Does the suffocating veneer of prestige not permeate most restaurants of a certain caliber already? And aren’t the attendees who want to eschew rarefied dining culture also making a very intentional choice by showing up to such a pretentious event?

The World Restaurant Awards seemed to be trying to cater to both groups, but with little effect. The unofficial dress code symbolized this duality: straightforward cocktail and look like I don’t care, but hey, maybe I do care, actually. A few people swanned around in tuxedos or in flowing sequined dresses with long trains, but there were also folks in plaid getups, T-shirts, and jeans. Of course, this is an event with chefs at its heart–a profession known for certain nonconformist mentalities. But what does a new culinary awards gathering bring in 2019 that previous ones have neglected? The party began with cocktails and finger foods. Then we were ushered into an auditorium. French actor Antoine de Caunes hosted the awards ceremony itself, peppering the seated attendees with dad jokes–making a toast with a literal piece of burnt toast (food humor!)–and references to his French-ness. His routine was punctuated by clips that showcased chefs discussing their craft (or cooking or gardening or doing something else serious yet photogenic) or referencing sustainability. The event ended with more food and drink as well as a DJ set from Hot Chip. As a mosh-pit-like atmosphere developed near some of the food tables, the hungrier in attendance clamored to get their hands on some dinner. Despite press materials’ focus on the gender diversity of the judging pool, the event itself proved to be lacking in that very regard: The presenters were majority male and overwhelmingly white. Attempts to stray from the usual script for events like these also missed the mark. The award for “tattoo-free chef,” for instance, appears to have been an attempt to poke fun at the colorful aesthetic body-art trend embraced by many chefs. This was a chance for the WRAs to shine a light on people who don’t fit the mold of the buttoned-up culinary world–perhaps a not-white, non-male chef in a non-European country. But the winner was . . . Alain Ducasse, a celebrated, extremely famous 62-year-old white Frenchman with multiple, hugely successful restaurants.

Even before the ceremony began, there were red flags. The Washington Post pointed out that the awards shortlist was overwhelmingly male-dominated. Bloomberg highlighted the lack of diversity: Though the judging pool had decent gender representation, “Only three of the 100 are of African descent; the majority of the female members are media, not chefs; and Europe is disproportionately represented.” The event director, Cécile Rebbot, provided the Post with the following statement: We are giving women in the industry an equal voice in these awards, and are hoping that the successful female judges coupled with those who are breaking through (we have two female-fronted restaurants on the shortlist for “Arrival of the Year”), will inspire and ignite this change. Also by addressing ethical thinking/staff welfare, we are hoping to contribute to improving the work environment for all, and that it will attract more female talent to the industry. Fine. But the overall effect of the ceremony was mere hand waves. The WRA acknowledged there were issues to be tackled, provided a bit of lip service and one tangible action in the form of gender equity on the judging panel, and then went on with the regularly scheduled programming. There were some nods in a certain direction–including an award for “ethical thinking”–but they didn’t amount to much. The past year-plus has been a reckoning for the restaurant industry. We’ve learned of culinary titans either harassing or assaulting employees–and we’ve started to view the long-standing reputation of kitchens being untenable work cultures in a new light. The industry is entering a new and uncertain era; it must figure out how to go forward. It can either ignore the headlines or talk about the cultural upheaval necessary to make for a more equitable workplace. Restaurateurs love (and I mean love) to talk about how to fix the system. Rarely is real action taken.

An event like the World Restaurant Awards presents a unique opportunity. Sure, Michelin would never utter a word about #MeToo, but if you are producing a new program that touts gender equity as one of its main tenets, you best be ready to frankly discuss the ugly issues as well. Yet this week’s event didn’t go that far. It dipped its toe in the pot and jerked it back out just as quickly. Don’t get me wrong: The event wasn’t bad. It was a party, an opportunity for people to hobnob and unwind. Every industry should celebrate its best and brightest (although the culinary world does this a lot). Attendees certainly had fun. Some winners were elated, others visibly uncomfortable–quickly grabbing their award and an expensive bottle of champagne, posing awkwardly for the photo op, and then scampering offstage. I left the party thinking about how events like the World Restaurant Awards could help us rethink the industry. Given the deep-pocketed sponsorships, I imagine the creators intend to make this an enduring event. I probably won’t be invited back, but I sincerely hope next year they can rethink their attempt at rethinking. Source: Fast Company.

Getting Locally Grown Food Can Often be a Pain for Chefs

They place orders with several farmers, then must send individual invoices and receive multiple deliveries at the kitchen door. A chance meeting between two small Collin County farmers promises to change that. Profound Foods, an ambitious new food hub, will improve the market for local growers and make it easier for restaurants to put the freshest food on customer’s plates.

Jeff Bednar, owner of Profound Microfarms in Lucas, and Nelson Carter, owner of Cartermere Farms in Celina, sat next to each other at a farm conference in 2017. Bednar said he was delivering produce to Dallas on Tuesday, and Carter said he was making a delivery on Thursday. “I said, ‘Why don’t you bring your stuff over and I’ll deliver it,’ ” Bednar says. Then Carter could make a delivery for him another day. It cut in half the time spent on deliveries for each of them. That simple conversation grew into an extensive, computerized network that allows chefs to order online from dozens of local farms. The farmers then deliver their goods to a central location and a shared delivery driver takes the goods to the restaurants. Growing quickly. Profound Foods used a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to acquire software and buy equipment, Bednar says.

The hub, located in Lucas at Bednar’s farm, provides a walk-in cooler and refrigerated delivery truck to make sure groceries are in peak condition. Fourteen farms have enrolled and more applications come in daily, says Amanda Vanhoovier, a local farmers market veteran who was brought on to Profound Foods to work directly with the growers. And about 52 restaurants have enrolled. Their goal is to reach 50 farms and 250 restaurants in the next 2 1/2 years. The food hub uses an extensive online program where each farm is represented and chefs can log on and see who is selling what. Orders are placed with the farm and then delivery is coordinated through Profound Foods. The chefs receive one invoice and make one payment. The money is then distributed to the farmers. The site offers a full menu of locally grown food, from produce to grass-fed beef and pork. There’s chicken and eggs, cheese and even mushrooms. Some of the produce comes from hydroponic farms like Bednar’s, and others come from more traditional soil (known as in-ground) farms. All items, including meat products, are grown using sustainable methods. No more ‘faceless farmers.’ Rick Wells, who owns two restaurants (Harvest Seasonal Kitchen and Rick’s Chophouse), lives on an organic farm in Lucas and started The Seed Project Foundation to support food sustainability, loves the hub.

Before small farms began springing up throughout North Texas, restaurants bought the best they could find, but it was from what Wells calls “faceless farmers.” These were big food distributors and big farms, and there was little relationship between the farmer and the chef. The farms make it easier to source local foods, and the hub makes it even easier to get the fresh foods the restaurants want, Wells says. Many small farmers depend on restaurant sales. Often, they don’t grow enough to supply major grocery stores and rely on sales at farmers markets. But selling at farmers markets requires a lot of time hauling to the market, waiting for sales, and then loading up and heading home, often for little profit. Establishing relationships with chefs is efficient, and it gives growers an ongoing market and some stability. Carter says he can call chefs and let them know if he has a particularly good crop of radishes or beets. “If I’m overstocked on chicken legs, I can call and encourage them to maybe serve a special with chicken legs,” he says. It’s those relationships that Profound Foods wants to strengthen, Carter says. Farmers will be encouraged to occasionally go along on deliveries to maintain the ties they have and start new ones. “How else are you going to meet 30 chefs in one day?” Bednar says. While the hub will help restaurants maintain high quality, it’s mostly about helping small farmers, Carter says. “We’re building the whole thing to elevate the farmers,” he says. – Source: The Dallas Morning News.

Nikkei Cuisine’s Time Is Actually, Finally Now

The food in Peru is as varied as the country’s terrain, a combination of mountains, rainforests, and coasts. This biodiversity, coupled with influences from European colonizers, enslaved Africans, and Asian migrants, means that Peruvian food encompasses a range of flavors. But for the past few years, it seems one cuisine from this confluence of groups has grabbed headlines in the states more than any other: Nikkei, the Peruvian style of cooking often billed as Japanese-Peruvian “fusion.” In America, “fusion” may call to mind a genre of dilettantish restaurant most popular in the mid-’00s. But to hear Nikkei chefs tell it, Nikkei is not so much a fusion in the 21st-century meaning of the word, but a distinct cultural cuisine, developed over generations. “Nikkei” is the word for the descendants of Japanese immigrants living around the world. In Peru, they began arriving in earnest at the turn of the 20th century to work on plantations, according to Ayumi Takenaka, a sociologist teaching at Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University currently writing a book on the history of the Japanese diaspora. Today, there are roughly 90,000 Nikkei people living in Peru, although estimates vary. It’s a number dwarfed by the population of Peruvians with Chinese ancestry (over 1 million), and the Nikkei population is also much larger in other countries: in Brazil, 1.5 million people have Japanese ancestry. But somewhere along the way, “Nikkei” began to refer to the food that grew out of the Japanese presence in Peru. Takenaka surmises it has something to do with the spread of Peruvian food worldwide. “There’s a lot of gastro-politics going on in Peru,” she says. “The Peruvian government and elite chefs are behind this, using the food as a tool of diplomacy.”

Peru has successfully built up a reputation for world class fine dining, and Nikkei, a cuisine founded on technique, fits into this space. Peru’s high-end restaurants are well represented on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Just last year, Lima Nikkei restaurant Maido broke into the top 10, after debuting at No. 44 in 2015. Takenaka also points to Nobu Matsuhisa, the chef responsible for Nobu, what many consider to be the world’s most successful fine dining chain restaurant, as an ambassador for Nikkei cuisine. Matsuhisa opened his first restaurant in Lima, Peru in 1973, and has since opened restaurants and hotels in more than 30 cities across five continents. But in America, his food is billed as Japanese. “Labels shift depending on the context,” Takenaka says. Nikkei food is Peruvian ingredients — tropical fish, quinoa, aji amarillo peppers — molded by Japanese techniques. Multiple chefs cite the modern preparation for ceviche as particularly indicative of the Nikkei style. Before Japanese influence in Peru, chefs would marinate fish (traditionally, corvina) for hours, often overnight. It was Japanese immigrants who taught Peruvians to treat raw fish more simply, and merely “cook it with lemon” seconds before plating, as Peruvian chef Ricardo Zarate puts it. Tiradito, raw fish cut in the manner of sashimi but dressed with a spicy sauce, is another staple of Nikkei menus. Still, unlike say Mexican cuisine, it’s not easy to reel off the names of foods that are “Nikkei.” “It’s kind of hard to explain because only Peruvians can recognize a dish that’s emblematic of Peruvian cuisine,” says Llama Inn chef Erik Ramirez.

This could be why despite murmurs of a rise over the past few years, Peruvian cuisine has yet to truly stake a claim in most American cities. However, in recent months, it seems a new wave of Nikkei restaurants are opening stateside, and with a Nikkei import straight from Peru coming soon to Miami, it could be that Nikkei cuisine — featuring dishes like sushi with Amazonian fish, anticucho meat skewers with sesame and yuzu-based sauces, and ceviches and tiraditos that combine Japanese citrus with aji peppers — has finally arrived. Osaka began as a popup in Lima in 2001. By 2002, owners Diego De La Puente and Diego Herrera opened their first brick-and-mortar restaurant, also in Lima. After hearing from tourists that they should expand outside of Peru, they opened an Osaka in Buenos Aires. “In Buenos Aires the brand took off,” De La Puente says. “From there it has been a constant growth and success story.” There are now 11 Osaka locations in seven South American cities. They vary slightly, each using local ingredients, but all serve Nikkei cuisine, like their appropriately titled “Nikkei” ceviche (a tuna ceviche with quinoa, Japanese cucumber, and yuzu sauce). And Osaka’s consistent popularity in South America informed the location of its first U.S. outpost. According to De La Puente, Miami made the most sense for Osaka’s American debut. “We’re targeting a community a that already knows about us,” he explains. “They either lived in South America in any of the cities where Osaka is today and they already know the concept, or they have family or a relationship with somebody who already knows the concept.” In Miami, Peruvian cuisine is well represented thanks to its large population of Peruvian-Americans, but chefs in cities without a customer base familiar with Nikkei cuisine admit that it’s not always an easy sell.

Over the past decade, Zarate, the self-proclaimed “godfather of Peruvian cuisine” in America, has opened several different Peruvian restaurants on the west coast. Some cited Japanese influences, but it wasn’t until 2018 that Zarate opened a restaurant with an explicit focus on Nikkei cuisine. At Once (pronounced like the number 11 in Spanish) in Las Vegas, Zarate’s introducing Nikkei to people from all over the world, not just Nevada residents. “It’s like the first fighter,” he says of being the only Nikkei restaurant on the Vegas strip. “I’m sure it will open the doors for many other Peruvian and Nikkei restaurants, but I’m the one who has to take the punches.” So far, though, he says he can’t complain. In New York, Sen Sakana, the city’s first Nikkei restaurant, met a lukewarm reception when it opened in 2017. Chef Mina Newman, the Peruvian half of the team that, at the time, also included Japanese chef Taku Nagai, says people didn’t know what to expect. “It’s hard to be number one because you have to constantly remind people about just what this cuisine is,” she says. “This is a culture that really just exists in Peru and we’re introducing it here to New York.” When describing her restaurant she still follows up “Nikkei” with the additional explicator “Japanese-Peruvian,” but says hearing it described as “fusion” is like “nails on a chalkboard.” “The negative connotation of this kills me,” Newman says, and adds that in New York, bagels, a food brought to the U.S. by immigrants and shaped by the city, aren’t labeled as fusion. She thinks Nikkei cuisine should be considered with the same deference. But Nikkei remains relatively under the radar. “What’s really curious is that despite a lot of talk or discourse at least in the culinary world about how popular Nikkei cuisine has become, most people don’t know anything about it,” Takenaka says. She says she’s asked crowds at conferences if they’ve heard of Nikkei cuisine only to see a few hands go up. However, Newman believes that since opening Sen Sakana, there’s a bit more general awareness of Nikkei, at least in New York City, thanks to increased travel to Peru. Indeed, Peru has the fastest-growing tourism sector in South America. Sen Sakana won’t be New York City’s lone Nikkei restaurant for much longer. In a couple months, Erik Ramirez is opening Nikkei restaurant Llama San. It’s the third addition to his Peruvian mini-empire; when the space became available just around the corner from his Peruvian sandwich shop Llamita, he knew it would be a great opportunity to bring the city a restaurant different from the ones he had done before. Nikkei cuisine in particular was the right concept for a number of reasons; one being his grandmother is Nikkei. “One of the best ways to learn your cultural history is through food,” he says. “I thought it would be a great way to expand my knowledge and continue developing this Peruvian flavor profile in New York.” Ramirez also thinks that the patrons of his first two restaurants, Llama Inn and Llamita, will easily take to Nikkei food. “They like acidity and spiciness and bold flavors, so I think that combination will be a home run and I think New Yorkers will really dig it,” he says. Nikkei has gained a foothold just outside of New York City, proof there’s an appetite for the cuisine on the East Coast. Nikkei of Peru opened in 2016 and earned a favorable review from the New York Times months later. Since then, owners Asa and Lina Jong have opened Nikkei restaurants in Oyster Bay and Rye, New York. Newman, for one, says more Nikkei cuisine in the area can only be a good thing. “I’m really excited. I feel like that solidifies that this is a cuisine,” Newman says of Llama San’s opening. “We can walk together this lonely path.” Osaka has already proven Nikkei’s appeal outside of Peru; North America is the next step, and the time to do it is now. “We don’t want to be late to a party,” De La Puente says. Osaka will open in Miami and then London before De La Puente and Herrera begin to consider other American cities, including Chicago, Boston, or even New York, although De La Puente admits he’s a bit scared of the notoriously rough market for restaurants there. The chefs at New York’s Nikkei restaurants, however, would likely welcome the competition. “In Miami you say, ‘Let’s go eat ceviche,’” Newman says. Her hope is that the phrase — and the food — will catch on everywhere else, too. – Source: Eater.

New its First Range of Global Coffee Products Under the Starbucks Brand

Nestle S.A. has launched its first range of global coffee products under the Starbucks brand since the two companies joined forces in August 2018. The new lineup comprises 24 products, including whole bean, roast and ground coffee, as well as the first Starbucks capsules developed using Nespresso and Nescafe Dolce Gusto coffee and system technologies. Other new offerings include a variety of signature Starbucks blends and single-origin coffees as well as a selection of classic beverages such as caramel macchiato and cappuccino. All products are made with ethically sourced, 100% arabica coffee. “Our two teams have done an outstanding job in just six months developing a range of new and exciting premium coffees, crafted with care and passion, combining Nestle’s coffee and system know-how with the Starbucks coffee, roasting and blending expertise,” said Patrice Bula, executive vice-president, head of strategic business units, marketing, sales and president of Nespresso. “With Nescafe, Nespresso and Starbucks, Nestle now has the best coffee portfolio to delight consumers around the world.” Nestle will begin rolling out the new products in several markets across the United States, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East over the next few days. “We are very pleased to be able to provide our premium high-quality Starbucks coffees to customers at home across the world’s most popular single-serve platforms, the Nespresso and Nescafe Dolce Gusto systems,” said John Culver, group president of Starbucks International, Channel Development and Global Coffee and Tea. “Today’s announcement further extends the global reach of Starbucks brand as we expand into new channels as part of a global coffee alliance with Nestle.” Nestle first announced its licensing agreement with Starbucks Corp. in May 2018. Nestle paid Starbucks $7.15 billion for the rights to market, sell and distribute certain Starbucks coffees and teas at retail and food service outside of Starbucks stores around the world, including such brands as Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, Starbucks Reserve and Teavana, Starbucks Via and Torrefazione Italia. The components of the Starbucks business Nestle is licensing generate approximately $2 billion in annual sales. Approximately 500 Starbucks employees joined Nestle as part of the agreement. – Source: Food Business News.

Sustainable Product Market Could Hit $150 Billion in U.S. by 2021

Consumers in the United States by Oct. 20 had spent $128.5 billion in 2018 on sustainable fast-moving consumer goods, according to Nielsen. The figure already had eclipsed $125.4 billion in 2017. Sales have risen nearly 20% since 2014 with a compound annual growth rate of 3.5% and a push from millennials. New York-based Nielsen forecasts the market to reach somewhere between $142.4 billion and $150.1 billion by 2021. Nielsen combines sustainability into free-from, clean, simple, sustainable and organic labels. Sales of products with sustainable attributes now make up 22% of total store sales. The market share moved up close to three percentage points from 2014 to 2017, and it could hit 25% by 2021. Nielsen found 48% of U.S. consumers said they are definitely or probably changing their consumption habits to reduce the impact on the environment. Millennials, at 75%, are more likely than baby boomers, at 34%, to say they are definitely or probably changing their habits to reduce impact on the environment. Ninety per cent of millennials, ages 21 to 34, said they are more willing to pay more for products that contain environmentally friendly or sustainable ingredients. Another 86% of millennials said they would pay more for products with organic/natural ingredients, and 80% said they would pay more for products with social responsibility claims. The percentages for baby boomers, ages 50 to 64, were 61% for environmentally friendly or sustainable ingredients, 59% for organic/natural ingredients and 48% for products with social responsibility claims. Millennials, at 53%, were more likely than baby boomers, at 34%, to say they would be willing to forego a brand in order to buy environmentally friendly products. “The generational divide in sustainability is fueled by technology,” said Sarah Schmansky, vice-president, Fresh/H&W Growth & Strategy for Nielsen. “We’ve found that sustainable shoppers in the U.S. are 67% more likely to be digitally engaged, which means they are used to having the products and knowledge they want right at their fingertips. With their devices playing a significant role in their purchase decisions, a simple and frictionless shopping experience between on and offline is critical.” – Source: Food Business News.

Papa John’s Launches Free-Tuition Program for Employees

Papa John’s International Inc, said it has teamed up with Purdue University Global to provide free tuition for its 20,000 corporate employees as well as “significant” reductions for franchisees’ employees who enroll in the online degree program. Employees at the pizza chain are eligible for free tuition at the online-only institution if they have worked more than 20 hours per week for at least 90 days. They can pursue 180 different degrees, including those outside specific hospitality programs, such as accounting, finance, cybersecurity and information technology. Textbooks and course materials are included in the offer, and the application fee is waived. Employees can enroll in programs for associate, bachelor’s or master’s degrees. Franchisees’ employees will receive a 20-percent tuition reduction for associate and bachelor’s degrees and a 14 percent reduction for master’s degrees, as well as waived application fees. Course materials also will be paid for, a company spokesperson said. A little less than a quarter of Papa John’s 2,729 North American locations, as of Sept. 30, 2018, were company owned. The rest were franchised. The company also franchised 1,840 units overseas as of that date. In an email, a company representative said the tuition offer is part of a broader effort that began last year to improve Papa John’s employee benefits. An associate’s degree in accounting from Purdue University Global normally costs $33,390, and a bachelor’s degree in that field costs $66,780, according to a Purdue customer service representative. “People are our most important ingredient and we are always looking for new ways to make Papa John’s a better place to work,” Papa John’s president and CEO Steve Ritchie said in a press release. “We believe this is a truly unique tuition program in our industry. We’re excited to partner with such a well-respected institution to help us deliver on such a robust career growth opportunity for team members who want to pursue their goals and further their education.” Papa John’s new chief people officer, Marvin Boakye, who was appointed in January, said in the release that Papa John’s wants to be “an employer of choice in the marketplace.” “This new tuition benefit program not only provides our team members with a tremendous career growth opportunity, but it gives us a competitive advantage in the marketplace that will make us better as an organization,” he added.

Purdue University Global chancellor Betty Vandenbosch said in a statement that the school was “delighted” with the arrangement. “Our new relationship with Papa John’s is an example of how we can help organizations meet the increasing demand for educated and trained workers, while creating a personalized, high-quality education for students that fits their busy schedules,” she said. Purdue Global’s program is designed to allow working adults to pursue their degrees at their own pace. Apart from trying to improve employee satisfaction in a very challenging labor market, this move also comes in the wake of a difficult year for Papa John’s that included accusations of a toxic corporate culture and conflict between current management and founder and former CEO John Schnatter. – Source: NRN.

Denny’s Refranchising Effort Targets 90 to 125 Company Stores

Amid another challenging quarter marked by widespread value offerings, Denny’s reported a 1 percent increase in systemwide same-store sales for the third quarter ended Sept. 26. The Spartanburg, S.C.-based family-dining chain said it plans to stimulate growth with an aggressive refranchising effort. It also plans to sell property occupied by low-volume restaurants. The refranchising initiative would result in the conversion of 90 to 125 company operated restaurants over the next 18 months.  Of the chain’s 1,715 units, 1,534, or roughly 90 percent, are currently franchise locations. The company said it would like to see the percentage of franchised units hover between 95 percent to 97 percent. Earlier this week, the company took one step in that direction. Denny’s said it will add more than 50 restaurants in Canada and the Philippines through new development agreements in those countries. “Our refranchising and development strategy will enable us to further evolve as a franchisor of choice that provides more focused support services, all while yielding a higher quality, more asset-light business model,” CEO John Miller said in a statement. “As always, we remain committed to profitable system sales growth, driving market share gains, delivering strong returns on invested capital and generating compelling returns for shareholders, including the return of capital.”

The move to an “asset light” business model will result in a re-evaluation of certain support functions, Miller said. These cost-saving initiatives will be shared over the coming quarters, he added. CFO Mark Wolfinger said the company also plans generate about $30 million from the sale of properties currently occupied by lower-volume restaurants. That would involve the sale of roughly 25 percent to 30 percent of 95 properties owned by Denny’s. The company plans to reallocate sale proceeds into higher-quality real estate. During the quarter, Miller said delivery continued to drive off-premise sales which now represent 10.5 percent of total sales at company restaurants and 10 percent at franchise units. Roughly, 71 percent of domestic restaurants are active with at least one third-party delivery partner. Miller said off-premise orders are “highly incremental” transactions that tend to be made by 18-to-34-year-olds during dinner and late at night. Stores that have adopted the new Heritage design model are also helping sales with a lift hovering in the mid-single-digit range. Miller said 80 percent of restaurants will sport the new look by the end of 2018.  “These remodels will continue to be a significant tailwind for our brand’s revitalization over the next few years,” Miller said. Denny’s reported net income of $10.8 million for the quarter, or 16 cents per share, compared with $9.3 million, or 13 cents per share, for the same quarter a year ago. Revenue was up 19.4 percent to $158 million, from $132.4 million in the year-earlier period. – Source: NRN.

3 Ways to Lighten up the Performance Management Process

If you’re like me, the answer is too many. Fortunately, there is a better way. At my company, we have gone through all of the typical iterations on our way to what we believe is the right approach. We’re a marketing tech startup, and for us an annual review process was absurd because the product and our roles will change dramatically in a year. Writing substantial quarterly reviews for a large team is better, but is still a huge time investment that is hard to justify when what really matters is improving performance for tomorrow, not agonizing over whether we did a good job yesterday. Things clicked into place when we transitioned to eight forward-facing, light-touch conversations per year. Suddenly, reviews only took ten minutes per person but they prompted the right conversations. Our employees felt like they were finally getting regular feedback and knew how they were doing. And the consistent nature of these conversations also helped eliminate the fear and stressful anticipation many associate with traditional “performance reviews.” Here are three key concepts to keep in mind when considering how to develop a more streamlined and effective performance management process within your organization:

Focus Reviews on the Future. Our change in performance reviews was paired with adoption of measurable quarterly goals, at the level of both the company and each individual employee. This allowed us to know at any time how we were actually doing, rather than having a vague and subjective feeling that a particular person was a rockstar or struggling. These future-focused conversations are always meaningful, because they focus on achieving goals. The mid-quarter conversation is actually more important than the after-quarter; it’s the time when employees and managers can strategize about how to finish the quarter strong. We talk about what has gone well so far, what has blocked progress, and what the manager and employee both need to do differently. After-quarter conversations acknowledge what the ultimate result was and focus on lessons learned for the next quarter. But it’s still all about development and how we can use lessons from the past on the next quarter. We also combined conversations around business performance and development into one. This not only ensures our employees have a clear understanding of how their progress maps back to the company’s larger goals, but also fosters more positive conversations around performance and improvement that employees will approach with far less tension and anxiety. Make Conversations About Performance Light and Frequent. Performance reviews don’t need to be overly complicated. In fact, simplifying them can actually allow for more organic and productive conversations to occur. In our new, simpler process, our employees answer just four questions about their progress and development towards their goals mid-way through the quarter: What has gone well in your progress toward your goals? What has blocked your progress, and what changes do you need to make in the rest of the quarter to achieve your goals? What is one value you want to work on? [NewsCred’s values are trust, grit, customer obsession, teamwork, and compassion]

How can your manager help? And two questions around accomplishments at the end of each quarter: 1) What can I learn from this quarter that can help me next quarter?  2) What is one value I want to focus on next quarter? Focusing on a concise batch of questions minimizes the time managers and employees spend worrying about and preparing for these reviews and helps ensure that these critical conversations actually happen. As a result, employees receive more clarity on their manager’s expectations and have a better understanding of their individual goals and how to achieve them by quarter’s end.

Use Technology to Streamline the Process. When we decided to restructure our review process, we partnered with an HR software company called Betterworks. We wanted to be sure that the new process was simple for managers and employees, and that adoption was seamless. Betterworks enables transparency into the progress of goals and gives our HR team the insights needed to ensure our managers are having these important conversations. The result has been a shift in attitude toward reviews from both managers and employees. Through forward-facing, frequent, lightweight conversations, combined with easy-to-use technologies, companies of any size can reduce stress on its performance management process. You can keep the focus on the right things: building something meaningful for your customers and winning the next quarter. – Source: Workology.

Wood Ranch BBQ & Grill Turns to Small, Hybrid Concept for Efficiency

Facing rising costs, the founders of the Wood Ranch BBQ & Grill chain plan to launch a new hybrid variation of the casual-dining brand with a smaller format and streamlined ordering system, the company said. The new concept will be called WR Kitchen & Bar, and will debut in Laguna Niguel, Calif., this spring.  A second location is set to open in Carlsbad, Calif. in the fall. For the last eight years, the operators of Wood Ranch have kicked around the idea of opening a smaller-format concept. The possibility of opening a fast-casual-style restaurant was never a necessity “as much as it was something we were curious about,” co-founder and CEO Eric Anders said. The founders toyed with the idea because the “cost of doing what we do is becoming more and more expensive to deliver great value to the guest,” Anders said. But instead of creating a fast-casual eatery, the Westlake Village, Calif-based company is going with a hybrid concept.

The new variations will retain about 80 percent of Wood Ranch’s menu, including the chain’s famed meat and rib plates, which are slow smoked then finished over a wood fire. New items include tacos with choice of brisket, pulled pork, smoked steelhead trout or roasted chicken. The footprint of the restaurant is smaller at 4,000-square feet, compared to a traditional 7,000-square-foot Wood Ranch restaurant. WR Kitchen’s menu will feature smaller portion options, such as the ability to order four ribs instead of a full or half (6) rack. Anders said the new format gives diners a slightly smaller check average of roughly $20 at dinner versus $25 at a full-service Wood Ranch. Diners also will get in and out faster because of WR Kitchen’s ordering system. This is where the new format takes an unusual turn. When diners walk in, they’ll face a bar that stretches the length of the restaurant. Diners will order their meal and drinks from a bartender at the bar, which will be outfitted with three ordering stations. Once diners order, they’ll be given a pager. They can sit anywhere in the 140-seat restaurant. If customers decide to order more food or drinks, a team of servers will be circulating the dining room to check on guests and take additional orders for food or alcoholic beverages. Customers with sodas can refill on their own at a self-serve soda station. Payments for additional orders are made tableside using an iPad. “We’ll never sacrifice quality, but we are making our service and systems more efficient and economical for our guests,” Anders said in a statement. “We’re excited about what we’ve developed and believe our guests will be too.” The entire new setup is designed to maintain Wood Ranch’s high-level of hospitality. That’s why Anders says WR Kitchen is not a fast-casual eatery. “We were very clear that we didn’t want to do fast casual. We don’t want to be in the fast-food business,” Anders said.

The first Wood Ranch BBQ & Grill opened in 1992 in Moorpark, Calif. Anders and his buddy, Ofer Shemtov, wanted to serve smoked meats and grilled steaks in a more upscale-casual setting, compared to a typical barbecue restaurant. They now operate 16 locations in Southern California. The most recent to open was in Burbank in 2017. It cost $4 million to build. That same year, the chain raised menu prices 1.5 percent to offset rising labor costs in California, which jump to $15 an hour in 2022. In 2018, Wood Ranch’s menu prices went up 3 percent. “It’s been a slow creep,” Anders said, adding that it has been tough to keep prices approachable for casual-dining consumers. “How do you remain casual when the forces at work require you to charge $18 for a hamburger?” he said. “The last thing we want to do is raise prices.” With the minimum wage rising every year and construction costs soaring, Anders said it was time to rethink the company’s next phase of growth. He challenged his team to reimagine Wood Ranch so it could succeed for another 27 years. That’s when WR Kitchen was born. While Wood Ranch had its best year ever in 2018, in terms of sales, Anders said it is possible that Burbank might be the last traditional full-service restaurant that the company will build. Future growth could be through the WR Kitchen format, which cost “substantially less” to build, he said. It also requires 80 employees, about 50 fewer than the larger-format restaurant in Burbank. “If these two are home runs for us, it would be hard to open another 7,000-square foot restaurant,” he said. – Source: NRN.

Panera Exec Brought Aboard at Bojangles’

Kenneth M. Koziol has joined Bojangles’, Inc. as its new chief restaurant support officer. In this role, Mr. Koziol will assume responsibility for supply chain, quality assurance, strategy, menu development, innovation and information technology for the Southern-style restaurant chain. Mr. Koziol joins Bojangles’ from Panera Bread Co., where he was most recently executive vice-president of supply chain, manufacturing and international. He had been with the bakery-cafe brand since April 2015. Prior to Panera, Mr. Koziol spent more than 20 years in senior leadership roles with McDonald’s Corp., eventually rising to executive vice-president and worldwide chief restaurant officer. “I am thrilled that a restaurant industry leader of Ken’s caliber has joined the Bojangles’ family at this exciting time for our brand,” said Jose Armario, chief executive officer of Bojangles’. “Ken’s extensive strategy development background, Q.S.R. business acumen and industry experience will add tremendous value to us as we prepare the groundwork for our long-term growth strategy.” Founded in 1977, Bojangles’ serves Southern-style recipes, including biscuit breakfast sandwiches, fried chicken, grits, dirty rice and iced tea. The company operates more than 750 locations across 12 states. In November 2018, Durational Capital Management LP and The Jordan Co. L.P. entered a definitive agreement to acquire Bojangles’ for $594 million. – Source: Food Business News.

Tim Hortons Shrugs off the Politics to go all-Canadian in China

Tim Hortons opened its first Chinese store, and the iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut chain is making no secret of its ancestry despite simmering political tensions between the two countries. The store in Shanghai — the first of a planned 1,500 — has hockey sticks for door handles and abundant maple leaves, on cups and dusted on the tops of lattes. Our brand has an essence and a spirit. And that’s been around and survived 60 years. “I’m not the political expert,” Tim Hortons President Alex Macedo said Tuesday. “We can’t judge when or how or where this is going to end…. If we can provide good service and a good restaurant environment, then that’s the best we can do.” When Macedo talks about the China expansion, he’s fond of repeating some version of this phrase: “We try to focus on what we can control.” And he cannot control what happens with Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who was arrested in Vancouver late last year at the behest of U.S. authorities, an act that infuriated Beijing and set off a diplomatic spat between Canada and China.

TimHortons’ first store in China opens, featuring special menu items including a salted egg yolk timbit. ‘Happy guests and happy franchisees’: Tim Hortons’ parent shakes up executive ranks amid solid results. ‘I’ve had a helluva ride in life’: Ron Joyce, Tim Hortons co-founder, dead at 88. What Macedo can control, though, is how much Tim Hortons reveals about its Canadian roots to Chinese consumers. But he wasn’t willing to tamper with the brand’s two main pillars: Canada and hockey. “Our brand has an essence and a spirit,” he said. “And that’s been around and survived 60 years.” “When we tested the brand and our products, people were fine. I don’t know. We didn’t test anything political, I don’t think. We had, you know, two-hour wait lines today in the restaurant. People were wrapping around the block. So I think it was a good day.”

The China expansion is out of the Restaurant Brands International Inc. playbook. RBI, which owns Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, expanded Burger King in China by signing a master franchise agreement with the private equity firm Cartesian Capital Group — essentially designating a single franchisee to build out the market. Cartesian builds and runs the restaurants, with the option to sub-franchise them. By using the same strategy — and the same private equity firm — with Tim Hortons in China, Macedo was confident the company will surpass its goal of opening 1,500 locations in 10 years, political tensions or not. We didn’t test anything political. But there is a legitimate risk to businesses connected to countries that have ran afoul of the Chinese government, said William Reinsch, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. who served as under secretary of commerce for export administration under U.S. President Bill Clinton. “The Chinese have gotten very good over the years at playing the nationalist card,” Reinsch said, referencing a boycott of South Korean brands and businesses in China starting in 2016 after the Chinese government voiced its displeasure with South Korea’s purchase of an American missile-defence system. “If the Chinese government is annoyed and feels that it has unfairly dealt with, then it will respond by telling its people that the Chinese people have been hurt.” It’s not yet clear whether the Huawei episode will reach that level, he said, though news of a spike in Chinese imports of Canadian soy beans in January could be interpreted as an encouraging sign for Canadian brands in China. Despite the risks, Reinsch said he didn’t think the expansion was ill-advised. “They’re not the only coffee-doughnut place in China,” he said. “One of the things you have to do is distinguish yourself from the rest of them. And one of the most obvious things that Tim Hortons can do is to basically say they’re not American.” Source: Financial Post.

Wendy’s Wants to Improve its Packaging

The Wendy’s Co. said that it plans to work with many of its rivals to improve the sustainability of foodservice industry packaging. The Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain joined the NextGen Consortium, a multiyear partnership of foodservice leaders including Starbucks, McDonald’s, Yum Brands and Nestle and convened by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy. Closed Loop Partners is an investment firm that backs sustainable consumer goods, recycling technologies and other efforts. Wendy’s is Joining the group, along with other industry leaders to address single-use food packaging waste. The consortium has created the NextGen Cup Challenge, which is focused on finding new sustainable cup designs. “We know that our customers are increasingly aware of packaging waste and its impact on the environment, and they’re already doing their part to be more conscious about their product use and recycling habits,” Liliana Esposito, Wendy’s chief communications officer, said in a statement. Wendy’s has created its own approach to sustainability that it calls Squarely Sustainable, a nod to its signature square burgers. The approach focuses on using fewer unnecessary materials, using certified sustainable materials where possible, identifying customer-facing actions that can drive change and work with partners to find solutions to important problems. Wendy’s eliminated Styrofoam from its restaurants in 2012 and more recently reduced fiber and plastic in several packaging formats, such as fry cartons, straws and bags. The company said there is a “growing need to identify environmentally sustainable solutions” and a “lack of broadly available alternatives to single-use plastic and paper.” Wendy’s operates more than 6,700 locations worldwide, most of them in the U.S. Restaurant chains have increasingly focused on finding sustainable packages amid mounting concern for plastic waste—as single-use items such as straws and other types of packaging end up in oceans, lakes and streams. – Source: Restaurant Business.

Where the World’s Chefs Want to Eat

Yardbird is not the world’s best restaurant. But if you were to pool the world’s best modern restaurant trends and traits — the polished technique of Tokyo, the sophisticated warmth of Sydney, the design acumen of Copenhagen, the nose-to-tail ethos of San Francisco, the tattooed bartenders and strong drinks of Berlin, the beautiful people of Los Angeles and the global culinary mix of New York — Yardbird is pretty much the restaurant you would end up with. That is why, eight years after opening, Yardbird remains one of the most popular and influential restaurants in Hong Kong, a city with no shortage of amazingly delicious food. Chefs from all over consider Yardbird their clubhouse when they visit the city: It’s a place they often say they wish they had opened themselves. “It occupies that rare sweet spot,” said Corey Lee, the chef at In Situ in San Francisco. “It’s just progressive enough, just traditional enough and just affordable enough that it satisfies a huge range of diners.” The two owners — Matt Abergel, the chef, and Lindsay Jang, the business manager — grew up in Canada. Like droves of other expatriates, they are entirely at home in this multinational city, where both Chinese and English are official languages and the food is multilingual. Later this year, the partners will expand to the United States, opening a Yardbird spinoff in Los Angeles, a city that has proved itself as an early adopter of Asian dining trends.

On its face, Yardbird is a chic and modern Japanese-style izakaya — a casual restaurant where drinking is as central as eating — with a specialty in yakitori, charcoal-grilled chicken skewers. (The same combination is easy to find in Japan, at places like Toridoriin Tokyo and the Michelin-starred Torisho Ishii in Osaka.) But in other ways, it’s a restaurant that could be anywhere — and be cool anywhere — right now. It has a crisp, black-and-blond visual identity, from the custom-designed chairs to the labels on the house line of Japanese whiskey. The partners have collaborated with streetwear brands like Vans, Carhartt and Stüssy. Staff members gather for yoga stretches before the dinner shift. There are Mexican-style beer cocktails and Korean-style fried cauliflower. On any given night, the servers, cooks and customers have arrived here from all over the world. As at other modern classics like the Momofuku restaurants and Relae and Joe Beef, the food is unfussy, the room is bustling and there is not a tablecloth or chef’s toque in sight. (Mr. Abergel usually wears shorts and a T-shirt in the kitchen; the six-foot-long grill filled with binchotan, Japanese charcoal that burns bright red and superhot, is relentless.) “The secret is that it created a community that everyone wants to be part of,” said Richard Ekkebus, the Dutch-born head of culinary operations at the elegant Landmark Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong. “The vibe is addictive, the food is delicious and unpretentious, and who doesn’t like grilled chicken? But it’s all done with a high level of technique.” Mr. Abergel’s signature dishes nod to international classics: a cool tomato salad with tofu skins and shiso leaf that is a play on the ubiquitous Caprese; French-style chicken liver mousse with toasted Japanese milk bread; a Caesar salad seasoned with dried seaweed, miso and fried baby anchovies. But in the realm of yakitori, grilled chicken skewers, he hews strictly to Japanese tradition. Every part of the bird, from Achilles’ heel to soft knee bone to neck, is used, each one butchered, skewered and seasoned in a specific way. “You can train someone to use a knife, but it’s hard to train someone who doesn’t have heart,” the chef Masayoshi Takayama wrote in an email. Mr. Abergel worked for him at Masa, in Midtown Manhattan, New York’s most elegant sushi temple. “Matt understands that it’s important to dig into tradition, to know why something needs to be done a certain way.” Most important to local customers, the birds are the famously fatty Chinese breed called “three yellow” (skin, beak, feet) that arrive, alive and squawking, each morning at the nearby Sheung Wan wet market.

Since most Hong Kong cooks and chefs shop daily and expect extremely fresh ingredients, the city has multiple hubs for vendors who sell — and butcher and trim and chop — produce, fish and meat on site. (They’re called “wet” because the sidewalks and floors are constantly hosed down to remove scales, leaves, blood and other debris.) “Until Yardbird opened, expat chefs would come here and dismiss the quality of local products,” said the chef Jowett Yu, who runs a similarly informal restaurant nearby with a Taiwanese-inspired menu, Ho Lee Fook. “But philosophically, Matt just didn’t believe you had to fly in frozen chickens from France that took two days to arrive, instead of using fresh chicken raised 30 kilometers from the restaurant.”

Mr. Abergel and Ms. Jang have a strong restaurant philosophy, summed up as excellence without pretension. They arrived there after decades of restaurant work, both together and separately. Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Mr. Abergel said he absorbed a taste for chicken fat from his Russian-Jewish grandmother, and a love of grilling from his Moroccan-Israeli father. He started working in restaurants when he was 14. Ms. Jang grew up working in her family’s restaurant in suburban Edmonton. Her father immigrated from Hong Kong, and her mother was a seventh-generation Scottish-Canadian; she grew up at a time when the population of Canada was far less diverse than it is now. “I was the only Asian person I ever saw during my childhood who wasn’t in my family,” she said. When her father was laid off from his job as an engineer, the family bought Golden Capital, a Chinese restaurant, in 1984. By their late teens, both Mr. Abergel and Ms. Jang were done with school, heavily into skateboards and knew their way around a restaurant. They landed jobs at the same skate shop in Calgary, The Source, around the year 2000, and have been together, in one form or another, ever since. They have been life partners, business partners, and occasionally both. They are raising two children (though they live separately); own another restaurant, the smaller, seafood-focused Ronin, nearby; and share a bracing irreverence for fine dining. Instead of going to culinary school or college, Mr. Abergel spent months traveling in Asia, then did a long stint at an izakaya in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ms. Jang was drawn to the service end of the business; she was working as a captain at Nobu Fifty Seven in Midtown when she persuaded him to join her in New York. They spent their nights off eating yakitori and talking about the different kind of restaurant they would open someday. “When I left New York I never wanted to work a restaurant again unless it was mine,” Ms. Jang said. They ran out of time on their United States work visas around when Ms. Jang was pregnant with their first child, so when Mr. Abergel was offered a job running a vast restaurant in Hong Kong’s swankiest mall, he took it, and they moved here together. But the corporate feeling of the place didn’t work for him. “I knew that there could be a restaurant that was fun,” he said. “Even if I had to build it myself.” He was right. Yardbird was an instant hit in 2011, stayed popular, moved to a larger space last year, and has proved surprisingly influential. “Yardbird has really changed the way front-of-house works in Hong Kong” said Mr. Yu, the chef, who is originally from Taiwan. Before, he said, service here was stuck in an old-fashioned mode: either too deferential and formal (at expensive restaurants) or indifferent bordering on neglectful (at cheap ones). “Yardbird was the first restaurant that made you feel like going to someone’s house party, “ he said, “where the waiters call you by your first name and give you a high-five and a hug.” Another regular, the British chef Daniel Calvert of Belon, said that Yardbird is so popular among visiting chefs that he wonders if Yardbird is now creating, not following, food trends. “Maybe it does reflect the way the whole world wants to dine,” he said. “Or does the world reflect how Yardbird wants us to dine?” – Source: The New York Times.

Sharing Tales of Latino Owners and Operators

McDonald’s is partnering with the Immigrant Archive Project to share the stories of the fast-food chain’s Latino owners and operators. Immigrant Archive Project is an organization founded in 2008 to document, preserve and share the stories of multicultural American immigrants. Tony Hernandez, co-founder and producer at Immigrant Archive Project (IAP) explained that while the organization has partnered with companies in the past, including Farmers Insurance, the collaboration marks the organization’s first partnership of this magnitude. He said it was a natural fit since the Immigrant Archive Project has already documented the stories of McDonald’s franchise owners and their impact on local communities. “McDonald’s has a proud history of supporting our communities across the country and around the world,” McDonald’s head of cultural engagement and experiences, U.S. marketing Lizette Williams told Adweek. She pointed to McDonald’s Hispanic Operators Association (MHOA), which was founded in 1977 by 10 Hispanic franchisees “as a national partnership with the company to build our community support and provide a direct link to our customers.” Williams called the partnership “a perfect fit for the president of the MHOA, Ana Madan, IAP, new-gen Latinos, McDonald’s corporate and our owners and operators at large,” since “the stories of owners and operators, many of whom emigrated to the U.S, opened a McDonald’s restaurant and built a legacy of generational wealth for their families and their communities” is “at the heart of MHOA.” According to Hernandez, pre-production on the videos will be over the course of the next month, with production taking place in April and May. The project will then launch with eight stories of McDonald’s owners and operators across the country shared widely across social media platforms in June. He explained that the partnership began developing over four months ago. “As luck would have it, we recorded the stories of two McDonald’s owners and operators several years back. What they gave us on camera was so rich, so touching and so real,” including the story of one of the earliest Latino McDonald’s owners and operators, Roberto Madan. That helped the organization show McDonald’s the potential benefit of such a partnership. “It’s really important for an oral and visual history project such as this that it’s seen by as many people as possible,” Hernandez said.

The hope is that McDonald’s platforms will enable them to be viewed by potentially “millions of people.” “For us, that is absolutely invaluable,” he said, “to be able to see immigrants presented in a true light and one that will help break myths and misconceptions” about immigrants and their contributions to society. Hernandez said these stories were “more important than ever to tell right now, because there is so much misinformation being shared out there widely, so many misconceptions and so many falsities being accepted for truths.” “I’ve always felt the best way to combat some of this is to share actual real human stories,” he added. “Once people connect with these stories … you can’t help but realize that on the human level we are so much more alike than we are unalike.” For McDonald’s, the partnership helps the fast-food giant highlight a long history of contributing to local communities. “Our long history with our Latino owners and operators is the very backbone of this project and a major part of our history. It’s what makes telling these stories so important and so powerful,” Williams said. “They are everyday heroes in their communities and have worked tirelessly to not only build their businesses but to truly transform the communities they serve.” One example of this, she explained, is the McDonald’s Hispanic American Commitment to Educational Resources scholarship program (HACER) established in 1985 by Hispanic owners and operators, which awards $500,000 in scholarships to Latino students across the country annually. “Stories inspire people to think bigger, act bolder and connect with everyday leaders in their communities. It’s often easy to forget that, as a company with a presence in communities all across the country, we’re truly comprised of individuals,” Williams said. “These owners and operators are the men and women who have pursued their American Dream and are now lending a hand to the next generation.”

While it’s unclear if this initial partnership will spark further initiatives, the potential for a long-term relationship between McDonald’s and Immigrant Archive Project certainly exists. “There are hundreds of McDonald’s owners and operators,” Hernandez said. “I certainly hope it does become a long-lasting relationship because it has the potential to be just that. There are so many compelling stories.” While the brand didn’t directly address the question of whether there are plans for such a long-term partnership, it did hint that future projects may be in the works. Immigration Archive Project also recently entered into a partnership with Cadillac, which launched around the Oscars and sees the automotive brand sponsoring around 10 Immigration Archive Project segments aligned with the Oscars, March Madness and the PGA Championship. Hernandez hopes the partnership with McDonald’s can open doors to other future brand partnerships. “I think others will see the value in what they’re doing with us and see how it can align organically with their brand as well,” he said. Source: Adweek.

The Brand Surpassed 1,700 U. S. Units this Past Quarter

IHOP continues to reap the benefits of last year’s eyebrow-raising campaigns as the brand transitions from a breakfast destination to an all-day dining destination. Even though the IHOPb promotion debuted last June, IHOP’s sales are still steadily climbing. Same-store sales upped 3 percent during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018, which represented the brand’s best performance in more than three years (Q3 of 2015). Also, it marked the fourth consecutive period of gains for IHOP. “This also marks the fourth consecutive quarter that IHOP outperformed the family dining category based on comp sales,” brand president Darren Rebelez said during a February 21 conference call. IHOP’s same-store revenue grew 1.5 percent and total revenue lifted 3.9 percent year-over-year, “both of which have been the brand’s best performance since 2015,” Rebelez said. But the company isn’t getting comfortable just yet. Over the last year, IHOP strategically implemented different initiatives—some with long-term benefits, some with short-term benefits—that are designed to help the brand maintain its stellar run. Along with the marketing success, franchise growth, expansion of off-premises, enhanced guest experience, and menu innovation have been key targets. “We’re heading into the new year with a lot of brave momentum,” Rebelez said. “… It was an incredible year for IHOP with several notable highlights, including our 50th anniversary, creating a media buzz with the IHOP name change campaign to launch our Ultimate Steakburgers platform, and opening our 1,700th domestic IHOP. I’m confident that 2019 will be yet another successful year for the brand.”

Earlier this month, the Pancizza—a pancake the size of a pizza—was released as a LTO product as a part of a promotion celebrating delivery and IHOP’s partnership with DoorDash. Growth in to-go. Off-premises continues to be a strong point for IHOP, with room to expand in the future. During the last quarter, off-premises sales grew 23 percent and to-go traffic rose 13 percent. With an improved website and new app, IHOP leadership hopes to drive more customers to order online. “With the increasing relevance of online ordering we believe there is significant upside potential,” Rebelez said. “Best of all, online ordering isn’t just more efficient; it’s more profitable.” Compared to regular to-go orders, Rebelez said, online orders are tracking about 31 percent higher. Since IHOP launched nationwide delivery with DoorDash in July, the number of participating restaurants tripled. Delivery now accounts for 8 percent of overall sales. More than 1000 restaurants offer the service and, by the end of 2019, an additional 300 restaurants are expected to join. “This year our focus will be on expanding our relationships with other leading delivery service providers as well as increasing marketing efforts aimed specifically at building awareness around our IHOP and Go program, and driving new and repeat off-premises business,” Rebelez said. “[It’s] another component to being where the guest is and putting more IHOP restaurants where our guests won’t go.”

Where Applebee’s and IHOP differ. After opening 34 U.S. restaurants and 11 international restaurants, IHOP surpassed 1,800 units during the fourth quarter. This is one area it differs from its sister brand. While Applebee’s strategy of shuttering underperforming locations took it down 5.1 percent to 1,837 units, IHOP expanded 2.5 percent, year-over-year, to 1,831 stores. There are now more domestic IHOPs (1,705) than Applebee’s (1,693), making it the largest casual-dining brand in the country. This time a year ago, those numbers were 1,671 and 1,782, respectively. Along with new locations, IHOP is giving existing stores a facelift. The Rise N’ Shine remodel is a modern take on the restaurant that enhances the overall experience for guests. “Our guests were in modern comfortable restaurants that exceeds their expectations and we gave it to them with a Rise N’ Shine remodel,” Rebelez said. Remodels have gone so well that a second version of the Rise N’ Shine model with more technology is currently being tested. Guest-facing tools like tablets and wireless credit card devices will allow more efficiency and accuracy when a customer dines at IHOP. In 2018, IHOP completed 275 remodels “bringing the total number of restaurants with the Rise N’ Shine image to over 1,000 when combined with new restaurants openings,” Rebelez said. During 2019 IHOP expects franchisees to open 35–55 new restaurants systemwide. Dine Brands chief financial officer, Tom Song, expects a majority of these to open domestically. The results of the IHOb campaign linger, in a good way. Power of the message. IHOP began 2018 as a breakfast destination and ended the year as an all-day dining one. The IHOb promotion played a major role. During the fourth quarter, burger sales continued to increase and have more than doubled since the June launch. “We successfully changed the narrative regarding lunch and dinner occasions at IHOP with strongest dayparts for both the fourth quarter and full year,” Rebelez said. “With abundant value and variety on our menu we proved that we can attract guests any time of the day.” Breakfast is still the main focus when it comes to menu innovation, but IHOP isn’t boxing itself into the segment when it comes to crazy promotions and marketing campaigns in the future. Earlier this month, the Pancizza—a pancake the size of a pizza—was released as a LTO product as a part of a promotion celebrating delivery and IHOP’s partnership with DoorDash. “People are seeing that we are having fun with this,” Dine Brands chief executive officer Steve Joyce said. “I think it makes us an interesting set of brand. There is a strong loyalty on both sides. And I think we are now delivering on that but in a way that’s fun. It’s a little edgy at times, but it’s always innovative and we don’t take ourselves too seriously. And I think that’s resonating with the 99 percent of the American public that we represent.” – Source: FSR Magazine.

PIZZA HUT is Working with FedEx on a Delivery Bot

The Companies are planning to Test the FedEx SameDay Bot this Summer. Pizza Hut announced that it has joined forces with shipping company FedEx on the FedEx SameDay Bot, an autonomous delivery device that promises to “revolutionize” local delivery. The bot, which is in development now for a planned test this summer, would support existing delivery staff “to improve the efficiency of the delivery process without compromising the quality” of the pizza. “As we look to advance our business and continue providing experiences that our customers deserve, exploring technology solutions that allow our team members to do what they do on an even greater scale is critical to our success,” Nicolas Burquier, chief customer and operations officer for Pizza Hut U.S., said in a statement. “Testing of the SameDay Bot with FedEx is just one more way we’re looking to the future of delivery at Pizza Hut.”

Pizza chains have been testing and developing new delivery technologies in recent years as they’ve sought to make delivery more efficient and generate attention from consumers in a competitive market. Pizza Hut rival Domino’s Pizza has started using an autonomous delivery vehicle it calls DRU – Domino’s Robotic Unit. And the chains have worked on developing vehicles that keep pizzas hot. Pizza Hut announced a pizza-making truck last year, for instance. The companies are also looking for ways to improve delivery amid intense competition from third-party services—the five largest generated sales of nearly $10 billion last year, up 55% year over year, according to Restaurant Business sister company Technomic. FedEx has been working with Deka Research and Development Corp. to develop its bot, which features technology that allows it to navigate unpaved surfaces, curbs or steps. The company plans to test the bot this summer in select markets, “pending final city approvals.” “The FedEx SameDay Bot is an innovation being developed to change the face of local delivery and help brands, like Pizza Hut, address the growing needs of their customers,” Brie Carere, chief marketing and communications officer for FedEx, said in a statement. “The FedEx bot looks to redefine delivery for this market in a manner that is cost-effective, safe and environmentally friendly.”

Consumers in a competitive market. Pizza Hut rival Domino’s Pizza has started using an autonomous delivery vehicle it calls calls DRU – Domino’s Robotic Unit. And the chains have worked on developing vehicles that keep pizzas hot. PizzaHut announced a pizza-making truck last year, for instance. The companies are also looking for ways to improve delivery amid intense competition from third-party services—the five largest generated sales of nearly $10 billion last year, up 55% year over year, according to Restaurant Business sister company Technomic. FedEx has been working with Deka Research and Development Corp. to develop its bot, which features technology that allows it to navigate unpaved surfaces, curbs or steps. The company plans to test the bot this summer in select markets, “pending final city approvals.” “The FedEx SameDay Bot is an innovation being developed to change the face of local delivery and help brands, like Pizza Hut, address the growing needs of their customers,” Brie Carere, chief marketing and communications officer for FedEx, said in a statement. “The FedEx bot looks to redefine delivery for this market in a manner that is cost-effective, safe and environmentally friendly.” – Source: Restaurant Business.

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