Western Expo: Tech solutions on tap
POS systems, marketing companies offer Web-based solutions.
September 2, 2008
*Click hereto view a slideshow from the 2008 Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo.
Health concerns and legislation impacted a number of vendors' offerings at the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo, held Aug. 22 through Aug. 25, 2008, in Los Angeles.
Many of the 12,000 show attendees were visiting point-of-service system vendors of which several were debuting Web-based applications and management solutions. POS system providers rolled out management tools such as Web alerts, used to notify managers if employees have not arrived at the scheduled time to open the store.
MICROS Systems Inc. debuted several new applications for its POS systems, including a biometric management solution to allow fingerprint scanning to replace timecards and manager log-in codes. Fingerprinting scanning reduces employee fraud, including the need to continually replace manager log-in cards or numbers.
Ed Cargill, sales engineer with MICROS, said biometrics is in its infancy in the restaurant industry, but he expects it to grow.
Online services were popular as well, especially online ordering solutions.
David Drekter, president of Santa Monica, Calif.-based OnlineMenuOrdering.com, said he never imagined online ordering taking off so quickly in the fast casual space, but "it's huge," he said. "It's growing at a voracious rate."
Mobile marketing is a must
In marketing, mobile messaging and e-mail marketing were hot topics. Alexandria, Va.-based Fishbowl, which helps restaurants drive sales using online technologies, offers both services to clients.
John Carpenter, senior vice president of sales at Fishbowl, said e-mail marketing in the form of newsletters or loyalty clubs is a fast-growing segment, even among fast casuals.
While limited-service restaurants tend to be slower at building an e-mail database than casual dining chains, fast casuals have had success using contests or co-registration methods, Carpenter said.
Boris Bugarski, CEO and president of mUrgent spoke on building an e-mail base in his education session "The Next Level in Email Marketing – 5 Must-Know Factors for Getting Results Now." (Read also, Western food show offers tips, new products.)
Bugarski recommended fast casuals place sign-up slips at all customer touch points throughout the front of house.
Mobile messaging is another growing way to reach customers, in which operators can send text messages to customers about specials. While some providers charge per text, Fishbowl offers a monthly fee for unlimited text messages, starting at $59 per concept. The monthly fee is reduced as the volume of locations increases, Carpenter said.
In just a few months, Fishbowl has added 15 restaurant operators to its mobile messaging service.
Trans-fat trends
Food products on display — from chipotle sauce to cream soups — touted trans-fat free ingredients, even though only a few areas across the country have banned the fat.
Richard Mayo, western regional manager for international bakery group Lantmånnen Unibake, said consumer awareness, however, is so high that suppliers find removing the ingredient is necessary.
Tom Ward, account executive with Mukilteo, Wash.-based Ivar's Seafood, Soup & Sauce Co., agrees.
"Trans-fat is a bad word in the restaurant industry right now," he said.
Ivar's has removed trans-fat from most of its soups and sauces to accommodate regional laws, Ward said.
While Lantmånnen's Danish-made desserts have been trans-fat free for some time, Mayo said following the Nordic countries' lead for health-consciousness.
"It's a shift in the guard on the Danish side," said Mayo, one of more than 650 vendors at the expo.
Another current industry buzz word is gluten-free, since about 10 percent of the population is gluten intolerant or gluten sensitive, said Tom Pfleider, president of Yorba Linda, Calif.-based Pfleider Foods Inc., manufacturer of Art of Chipotle pastes and dipping sauces. Art of Chipotle offerings are all trans-fat- and gluten-free in an effort to respond to consumers' needs.
Of course, no one can predict how these trends will play out, but suppliers are always on the alert for the next one.
"This decade is the trans-fat free decade. In another five years it will be high-fructose corn syrup," Mayo said.
Menu labeling laws affect offerings
Several suppliers were responding to legislation on the East and West coasts regarding regulations in calorie counts on menus and trans-fat bans.
Brookfield, Wis.-based Mainstreet Menu Systems promoted a menu board with removable individual lines that can easily be updated to include a menu item's calorie count.
Digital displays also are seeing growth, especially in the Chicago area after the National Restaurant Association Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show, said Lynn Whalen, business development for Mainstreet.
"This show, there's a broad spectrum of interest" across all types of menu boards, Whalen said.
Vendors showcase time-saving applications
ASI's Restaurant Manager POS solution displayed its applications for Web-based services, from online consumer gift-card ordering to online ordering, which is a growing trend in the fast casual segment.
Beverage-Airshowcased its redesigned Sandwich Preparation – Mega Top. The refrigerated work station offers drawers that fit between notched divider bars to house a variety of pan sizes between stay-put dividers. A pan liner prevents drips into the bottom of the unit. Other features include a 10-inch cutting board and self-closing doors with a stay-open feature.
Brownstone Technology Solutions showed its Alliance POS System with an intuitive screen design and instant messaging function. Alliance's data redundancy configuration updates data to the back-up server with each transaction. Web-based solutions allow operators to check reports from a remote location via the Internet.
The Coca Cola Companydebuted its Juan Valdez Café Reale coffee and Gold Peak Iced Tea bag-in-the-box offerings. Café Reale is made from prime Columbian Arabica beans with no preservatives or chemical additives. Gold Peak Iced Tea, originally available on in bottles, now is available to operators with three options for serving, including self-service. Dinerwarewas one of several POS providers offering intuitive restaurant software, which is well suited to fast casual operations. The system is easy to learn and to manage since changes can be made at any POS terminal in the store, not just at a back-of-house or specified terminal.Dynamic, creator and manufacturer of commercial kitchen products, demonstrated the labor-saving benefits of its Dynacube, a contraption that looks like an orange UFO but is actually a produce dicer. The hand-operated dicer produces cubes from 1/8-inch to 3/4-inch, even from ripe tomatoes.
Farmer Bros. Co. featured Brewmatic's Jura of Switzerland Impressa X9, a programmable commercial coffee and espresso machine that dispenses individual cups in 45 seconds. The Impressa includes two grinders that can be programmed for more than 20 special blends. Options include a milk cooler and cup warmer.
Flavor Burst Co.gave samples from its CrunchiCreme System, an add-on to a soft-serve machine that offers a twist on blended-candy and ice-cream offerings. The system, which holds eight different pre-chopped candies, blends candy toppings onto cones or into shakes in a variety of serving sizes, including child-sized.
Fondant Systemsintroduced its Ready Numb3r5 On-Demand Operational Intelligence solution. The software offersmultiunit operators a reporting and analysis solution that aggregates electronic data sources. The user-friendly platform is custom tailored to operators' needs and delivers reporting and analysis from all data sources.
Kinetco Inc.showed its CP Series Commercial Water Softening line. The CP Series provides maximum water hardness reduction with an automatic, non-electric operating system. The twin-tank system produces an uninterrupted supply of clean, soft water that is also used in the regeneration process, which improves the system's efficiency and the water quality.
Robot Coupe U.S.A.,developer of commercial food processors, demonstrated its electric dicer, the R2Dice. The food processor with its continuous feed system utilizes a variety of slicing blades and a dicing attachment to slice, grate and dice produce, including firm tomatoes. The dicing attachment outputs cubes of 8 mm to 12 mm. An optional rack houses the blades.
Sara Lee Foodservicepromoted its sustainable Good Origin Coffee offerings. Good Origin offers three premium and three gourmet coffees grown on UTZ-certified farms. UTZ Certified is a worldwide coffee sustainability program that offers traceability to the growing farm. Sara Lee loans the dispenser to operators, but those who qualify based on sales receive the dispenser free.
Trade Supplies, specialists in foodservice packaging, promoted its eco-friendly offerings. The products are especially popular along the West Coast where foam packaging has been banned, but green conscious consumers and operators also are interested. Eco-friendly packaging can now handle hot food products, and some offerings are microwavable. Bagasse containers made from sugar-cane fiber replace hinged, foam containers, while PLA-coated clear and paper products replace PET products. The company's eco-friendly packaging is compostable and/or biodegradable.
