Trends

The hottest new hamburger at Hardee’s is an unabashedly unhealthy mountain of meat called the Monster Thickburger.

Loaded with two 1/3-pound Angus beef patties, four strips of bacon and three slices of cheese, slathered with a generous swab of mayonnaise and encased in a buttered bun, it’s not exactly a celebration of calorie counting.

Who’s counting? When the 1,420-calorie, 107-fat-gram behemoth was unleashed, people gobbled it up.

“Sales results for this politically incorrect burger have been encouraging,” Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of Hardee’s parent CKE Restaurants Inc., told Wall Street analysts after the big burger’s debut in mid-November.

The Monster has been singled out – the Center for Science in the Public Interest called it the “fast-food equivalent of a snuff film” – but the $5.49, 4-inch-tall sandwich is just the newest heart-clogging trend in the fast-food industry.

Big is nothing new at fast-food restaurants. McDonald’s, for instance, famously offered Super Size fries and drinks until it overhauled its menu to promote a “balanced lifestyle” last March.

The latest trend isn’t just about size or value. It’s about thumbing your nose at the food police.

La Times for full article

French Dieting. Now that the low-carb craze seems to be fading, could a diet modeled on the way French women eat be the next big American weight-loss trend? Could be, if “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” hailed by its author as “the ultimate non-diet book” catches on, reports Nanci Hellmich in USA Today. According to Mireille Guiliano, the book’s author, the reason so many French women “are slender and graceful” is that they “eat with all five senses … allowing less to seem like more.” No, it’s not because they smoke. It’s because, as Mireille explains, when she goes out with friends for a sandwich, in Paris, “we sit down, take our time, look at the sandwich, admire the bread or the butter on it. We eat slowly. We chew well. We stop between bites.” And “we” don’t get fat.

reveries, by Tim Maners

By Harry Balzer, NPD Vice President

The element of surprise cannot be under-rated in love or in war or in the food industry. In the food business, as in other industries, examining the areas that run counter to popular perception and raise eyebrows can be the first step in identifying business opportunities and existing niches that have not been fully mined for potential riches.

Based on the latest findings at NPD Foodworld, following are my top Food Surprises of 2004: NPD Food World

New polling data suggests anger at U.S. foreign policy may be translating into avoidance of U.S. brands in some countries. “The world’s love affair with America isn’t exactly over, but it has stopped being a blind and unquestioning kind of love,” said Simon Anholt, author of “Brand America.” Business for Diplomatic Action, a coalition of public relations and advertising executives, has recruited companies such as PepsiCo and McDonald’s to join an effort to help improve America’s image abroad.

Financial Times London

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Paddi Lund… he’s a dentist in Brisbane that shocked the dental world by firing his clients… he then halved his client base and doubled his profits and works half the time You see, dentists have the second highest suicide rate of any profession. And one day paddi was going to work depressed as hell, and got to thinking… What do I hate about my business. The answer was most of his clients, the sterile environment… the whole drill, fill and bill process.

So he broke his clients into A, B and C clients. “A” clients loved what he did, paid on time and told their friends. C clients always complained, turned up late and bitched about his fees. So he wrote to all the C clients and told them to find another dentist. He then LOCKED his doors and put a sign up saying… if you’re a client, ring the bell we’ll let you in. If you’re not a client there’s a dentist up the road.

He then took an axe to his business and put in an oven and a cappucino machine.

Now here’s the best bit… The only way you could become a client of Paddis was someone had to REFER you. IN fact the referral bit was a condition of doing business with him. Before he would work on you he’d say… I’m going to give you the best dental treatment and in return I have one condition that you must meet… you have to refer at least 3 people to my business.

Paddi realised that getting A customers to refer their friends would simply generate more A customers… people have friends that tend to be like themselves… good payers etc etc.

He then had a Guarantee… the FREE PRIZE!… NO PAIN!… What do people fear most about dentists? Pain… by working with less clients and in a more relaxed environment he was able to take his time and that meant better pain control.

From Seth Godin’s Blog

So, consumers want to eat fruits and vegetables, but they arent getting them away from home. This sales opportunity should be of particular interest to the quick-service segment, since two-thirds of consumers report they eat at a quick-serve restaurant at least once every two weeks, yet only 18 percent of them regularly consume a fruit or vegetable there.

Why? While restaurants fruit and vegetable offerings have improved over the past year, evidence suggests there is plenty of opportunity to expand the average menu, including quick-service. Fruit menu mentions increased 18 percent between 2002 and 2003, while vegetable menu mentions were up 5 percent, according to Food Beat Inc.s study of the top 200 chains menus. However, more than 50 of the 200 chains didnt mention fruit at all, and 41 percent of fruit menu mentions were desserts. While menu mentions of vegetables were seven times higher than fruit mentions in the survey, the majority of this growth comes from the explosion in entre salads.

With the proven success of salads in quick-service, savy marketers are already working on the next items to satisfy the customers continuing desire for healthy eating options.

Full article in QSR

Nonalcoholic drinks, paired with a tasting menu at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, blend flavors like prickly pear and kaffir lime leaves; barley and black cardamom; huckleberry and sesame; and cauliflower and turmeric root.

Now there’s a way for people who are limiting or avoiding alcohol finally to feel like grown-ups at the table: the nonalcoholic beverage pairing. [Read more…] about Juice for Caviar, Soda for Foie Gras

Chicago Sun-Times
A study by NPD Group, an independent marketing information company, found that the percentage of American adults on any low-carb diet in 2004 peaked at 9.1 percent in February and dropped to 4.9 percent by early November.

That means many companies that rode the low-carb wave are either out of business or refocusing their strategies.

MGP Ingredients Inc. of Atchison, Kan., which profited from the low-carb trend, earlier this month cut its fiscal 2005 per-share earnings forecast by more than half — from $1.08 to no more than 50 cents.

The reason is reduced demand for its specialty proteins and starches used to remove carbohydrates from foods. MGP said low-carb demand had peaked, and it did not expect it to return to anywhere near the level that sparked a 123 percent increase in sales in the third quarter of fiscal 2004.