Coaching for personal growth, change and development
By Mike Hohnen
Marketing experts agree on two things: People in their 20s are eating out, carrying out and driving through more than any other age group in history. And when they do go to the food store, they look for convenience. A lot of it. They don’t even have time to wash their lettuce.
Full article a t Baltimore Sun
By Mike Hohnen
People expect fine wine to equal gourmet cuisine. “So why shouldn’t great beer be synonymous with fabulous food? asks Susan Ralston, director of research and development at Louisville, Colo.-based Rock Bottom Restaurants Inc. “Cultivating that connection has pretty much become our mission?
Recognizing that handcrafted-beer drinkers have well-developed palates and crave more than pub grub to go with their favorite brews, Rock Bottom has been working to elevate the food side of its menu. New dishes and more-contemporary plate presentations have shown promising results. Highlighted in limited-time offers that closely link dishes with matching beers, the shift in focus helped increase comp-store sales by 3 percent to 5 percent and food sales by 3 percent to 4 percent over the last two years, says Marketing Director Marilyn Davenport.
Read the Article at Foodservice 411
By Mike Hohnen
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Feel like a cup of tea, but don’t have the time to brew one up? Pop a “tea pill” instead.
Indian tea scientists have produced a tea-flavoured pill that can be chewed or quickly dissolved in hot or cold water.
The brownish tablet weighs 0.3 grams and consists of 80 percent tea and 20 percent other flavours — a combination the inventors at the Tocklai tea research centre in Assam say peps you up just like a traditional cuppa.
“You can suck it, chew it or dissolve it in water the way you like to have it and still feel the taste of a real cup of tea,” said the centre’s director, Mridul Hazarika.
“As the liquid tea refreshes, this tea pill will also refresh the people because it contains pure tea ingredients.”
Hazarika said the centre had applied for a patent and the pill, with a bit more fine tuning, should hit the market in six months.
Indians drink a lot of tea but in recent years its tea business, the world’s largest, has faced growing competition from soft drinks.
Link
By Mike Hohnen
When it comes to dinner, consumers want it all: active, individual lifestyles AND sit-down family dinners, preferably combined with convenience AND authenticity. Which means the food and beverage world is forever coming up with innovative, wholesome yet effortless ways to feed busy singles and families; from healthy ready-to-heat meals to online grocers such as FreshDirect. Now, add to this equation services like Dream Dinners, Dinner Helpers and Let’s Dish
read moreSpringwise
By Mike Hohnen
Part wine lounge, part tasting room and part retail shop, VinoVenue is The Place To Taste and experience wine. Over 100 wines are featured, all of which are personally chosen by the owners with an emphasis on small production, family-owned, high quality wines at varying price points.
VinoVenue stretches the traditional wine bar and retail store boundaries by offering guests a new, on-premise forum for tasting and buying wines. For the first time, guests can serve themselves by purchasing a VinoVenue tasting card, inserting it into the automated wine stations, selecting a wine and receiving a one-ounce Individually priced pours of more than 100 wines sourced from wineries around the globe range from $1 to $28.
VinoVenue home page
By Mike Hohnen
Really super-fast pizza
Wisconsin’s Super Fast Pizza has finally figured out how to deliver piping hot pizzas within 15 minutes. The secret? High-tech mobile kitchen vans, officially licensed as restaurants, are outfitted with custom ovens that can cook pizzas at 600 degrees. Fully powered and wifi-enabled, Super Fast Pizza’s kitchens on wheels take orders and cook pizzas while on their way to customers. To save time and make the best of the limited cooking space, all processes have been standardized: the menu only offers the seven most popular pizzas (think deluxe, sausage, sausage and pepperoni, five-cheese, four-meat, pepperoni, veggie, and a pizza of the month), all pizzas are uncut and medium sized, and all cost USD 10.99. Online ordering is encouraged.
Fuul article at SpringWise
By Mike Hohnen
Which global markets are ripe for quick-serve expansion in the next decade? Here’s a clue” Think emerging.
According to Dr. Ilon Alon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of International Business at the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College, 80 percent of the world’s population lives in so-called emerging markets. And, as he writes at www.franchise-chat.com, the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that more than 75 percent of the expected growth in world trade over the next 20 years “will come from developing countries, particularly big emerging markets??
But where are these markets?QSR Magazine
By Mike Hohnen
Ron Paul, an analyst at Technomic in Chicago, says the No. 2 hamburger chain (behind McDonald’s) saw sales grow 14 percent in January. In October, same-store sales were up 6.9 percent, compared with last year. In November, they were up 9.1 percent, and in December, 13.1 percent. Despite the closings of hundreds of stores due to bankruptcy, Paul says, “They appear to definitely be in recovery mode. Their poor times are behind them, and they’re hitting on all eight cylinders.”
Ad Week
Get fresh perspectives and practical wisdom on building authentic professional relationships that make your life easier.
Join my newsletter list here (published once a month)