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What does research in chicken consumers tell your restaurant business?

Market Force (www.marketforce) consumer survey on chicken preferences and trends

October 10, 2010 by Janet Eden-Harris — CMO & SVP Strategy, Market Force

Recently Market Force ran a study with over 3,300 consumers of chicken to better understand their perceptions and behaviors as they relate to the chicken industry and those restaurants who depend on this popular bird. What possibly could an executive running a large restaurant business learn from questions about such a small niche of this food industry category? After all, isn’t it all just about how you prepare this basic meat? In essence, what can Customer Intelligence tell us about this not so intelligent bird?

Well, a lot of the answers are really telling in just how much opportunity there is for a QSR or Fast Casual restaurant to optimize the dining experience. First, let’s give you an update on the trend of eating out. We asked respondents what their expectations are for eating out in the coming months. 25% of consumers say they will eat out more frequently in Q3 than in the past three months. That’s a 20% leap over the estimates at the end of 2009. Great news for restaurants! But what’s most important to our industry friends who are hatching those little birds is the trend toward healthier eating. Almost half of consumers say it’s EXTREMELY important that restaurants provide nutrition and calorie information, and about a third want portion control. So consumers are actively thinking about how to make healthy choices in restaurants. What’s really surprising is that of the 3,300+ respondents of the study, only 20% mentioned it was easy to find healthy chicken items at QSR/Fast Casual Restaurants.

Then we looked at the trend for which restaurants are favorites and why. In this most recent study, after indexing by the number of locations, the rankings unfolded at the top QSR/Fast Casual category with Five Guys (14.4%), Chick-fil-A (12.5%), Chipotle (7.7%), and Panera Bread (7.3%). When ranking the restaurants on a “healthy choices” attribute Panera, Chick-fil-A and Chipotle all came out far ahead. When asked what their “favorite chicken restaurant” is the clear top four are Chick-fil-A, Boston Market, El Pollo Loco and Zaxby’s. No big surprise here-- but what this points out is the consumers’ desire for easy to find, healthy menu options. These restaurants have created a high perceived value from healthy and high-quality food options.

Finally, we took a look at what is driving new restaurant trials. Nearly 35% of new restaurant visits are driven by a friend recommending the establishment. That’s just part of the battle restaurant operators face for new customers. Unfortunately the research goes on to point out that just 65% of those new visitors were “delighted” and over a third thought the experience was just OK or bad. We have found in previous benchmark research that a customer who is “extremely satisfied” is three times more likely to recommend than someone who is merely “satisfied”. All this chicken data points to a simple conclusion… the ability to delight your customers with healthy choices that are easy to find and allow for portion control all lead to happy and loyal customers that drive financial success!