Food & Beverage
Lobster rolls onto fast casual menus
Lobster is catching on at fast casual menus as mentions of the fare have increased 4.5% on core menus over the past year, including 9.1% in appetizers and 100% on kids' menus.
July 10, 2023 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com
Lobster may not be the first type of cuisine fast casual customers expect to see on the menu, but that's not stopping several brands from offering it on their 2023 summer menus.
Panera Bread and California-based Pokeworks, for example, have each created lobster-based seasonal LTOs; guests of 200 Panera locations across the Northeastern United States may now order a lobster roll or the Lobster Mac & Cheese, and Pokeworks customers may opt for lobster in their poke bowls until Oct. 3.
The brands are following a trend that Technomic's Lizze Freier calls, "interesting," noting that mentions of lobster have increased 4.5% on core fast casual menus over the past year, including 9.1% in appetizers and 100% on kids menus.
"Within LTOs, we're seeing upticks as well," she told Fast Casual in an email interview. " At Top 500 fast casual restaurants, LTO launches with lobster in the first half of the year (January-June) have increased 200% compared to the same time frame last year."
Pokeworks is hoping to give customers a taste of the high life without breaking the bank with its Luxe Lobster Bowl, according to Michele LaMont, the brand's head of marketing.
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| Pokeworks is hoping to give customers a taste of the high life without breaking the bank with its Luxe Lobster Bowl. provided by Pokworks |
"We are always trying to expand horizons when it comes to Poke and how people think about it," she said in a company press release. "With the inclusion of something as luxurious as lobster that is low in calories and not offered at other Poke restaurants, this new bowl is perfect for those looking for a fresh and satisfying meal that won't weigh you down this summer."
Fishy Fad or here to stay?
The lobster fad may be part of a larger trend, however.
"One trend I'm noticing at fast casuals is that they're increasingly embracing fish and seafood," Freier said. "In addition to lobster, other fish/seafood items increasing on core fast casual menus include mussels (15.4%), prawns (11.1%) and oysters (10.3%).
Although lobster may be new to many fast casual brands, it's the bread and butter at Cousins Maine Lobster, a 60-unit food truck and brick-and-mortar concept based in Los Angeles. Annie Tselikis, the chain's director of marketing and franchise sales, said several factors are driving the increase.
"The brands that menu lobster as an LTO are capitalizing on the fact that lobster has historically been thought of as a summertime food," she told FastCasual in an email interview. "People remember vacationing in Maine and having a lobster and clams on a wharf with an incredible view. So consumers think of summer, and they think of lobster. I also think that consumer demand is changing — they can get chicken or a burger anywhere —but lobster is a special item and so it drives guests to the brand."
Tselikis, who has been in the lobster business for nearly 20 years, said customers have traditionally associated lobster with a center-of-plate item — whole cooked lobster or a tail with a filet at a white tablecloth restaurant — which is one reason it hasn't always been a fast casual go-to menu offering.
The other is cost.
"Lobster is one of the most expensive proteins on the planet, (but) the lobster industry itself has been innovating and has produced more value-added products to diversify their customer base in both food service and retail," she said. "At Cousins Maine Lobster we have focused first on quality. We start with the best lobster in the world and then we make lobster accessible to our guests around the country by offering them lobster rolls, a product that is accessible versus having to crack apart a whole lobster and more affordable than the traditional lobster experience. We control costs by having extremely simple operations which allow for fewer people in the back of the house on our food trucks or our brick-and-mortar locations. And we are able to drive sales volume by bringing lobster into areas of the country where you traditionally would never see lobster on the menu."
Lobster vs langoustine
While it is lobster season, Suzy Badaracco, president of Culinary Tides and menu trend expert, said a three-month seasonal closure in Massachusetts enacted to protect endangered right whales has created a lobster shortage. She advised customers should ask if they are actually eating lobster and not langoustine. Neither a lobster or a prawn, langoustine are more closely related to porcelain and hermit crabs.
"It got worse because June was the molting season when they cannot be caught," Badaracco said in an email interview with FastCasual. "Lobster hits menus each summer, but I will bet you they are serving langoustine and not actually lobster at all. That is what we are seeing in Florida. I would confirm what they are actually serving."
Cousins Maine Lobster, however, said it serves only American lobster — Homarus americanus — and doesn't substitute or compromise on quality. It also hasn't faced a shortage because it sources its lobster from Maine, not Massachusetts, where the closure was in place.
"We want our Cousins Maine Lobster guests to enjoy the best lobster experience they can have outside of the state of Maine and in order to do that we focus on two things: providing the best lobster in the world and incredible customer service," Tselikis said. "The reality is that lobster is a specialty item and I truly believe that by exposing more people to really good lobster, we're doing consumers a favor that will make them want to come back and try this product again and again."
Pokeworks said its LTO is created from lobster meat from the cold waters of the North Atlantic and blended with whitefish to make a surimi blend, which allows for an affordable price point.
"The lobster meat comes from the knuckles and claws of the lobster and we prepare it with sesame oil and kosher salt so that the flavor of the lobster meat is present in every bite," President and co-Founder Mike Chen told FastCasual in an email interview.
About Cherryh Cansler
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