Restaurant Equipment

restaurant equipment and restaurant supplies

Archive for category Restaurant Marketing

Fried food still remains king and gets healthier

Mar 4

Posted by True-Restaurant-Equipment in Deep Fryer, Food Preparation, Fry Oil, Restaurant Equipment, Restaurant Marketing | Comments off

Despite the large push by consumers, health food watchdogs and Government agencies various surveys report that frying is still the most popular method of food preparation on the menus of restaurants today. With the food service industry making an effort to move to healthy oils and communicate their benefits, patrons are starting to accept the idea that fried foods can still be part of a good diet. As the massive media coverage of trans fats continues, restaurant owners are facing a never ending quest satisfy the customers desire for fried foods that are also healthy.

Alternative fryer oils that are coming to the forefront of the healthy movement are Omega-9 canola oil and low-linolenic soybean oil. These oils are a direct result of genetic engineering and advanced breeding technologies in their respective plant lines. The goal of these oils is to replace partially hydrogenated oils that were previously a staple in the food service industry and high in trans fats. The beauty of these oils, and others like them, is that they can be blended together to create different nutritional profiles and unique tastes.

The restaurant franchise Wendy’s as made it publicly known that they use a blend of soy and corn oil that is trans fat free to cook their french fries and chicken menu selections. With the media coverage focused on trans fat, moves like this not only give patrons the healthy choices that are looking for, but also serves as a marketing angle to attract more market share.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Trans fat and how it drives the restaurant industry

Mar 2

Posted by True-Restaurant-Equipment in Food Preparation, Restaurant Equipment, Restaurant Management, Restaurant Marketing | Comments off

With trans fat being such a huge consumer concern in the last decade, and continuing to grow, the prepackaged food industry began making voluntary moves to remove or reduce the amount of trans fats in their products. Granted this voluntary move really picked up steam once the Government mandated that trans fats needed to be documented on nutritional labeling, but the fact still remains that great effort has made by the prepackaged industry to get on board the trans fat bandwagon.

The focus of trans fat has now shifted to the food service industry, where it is estimated by some source that up to 38% of our fat intake comes from. The use of partially hydrogenated frying oil and ingredients containing trans fat are both large contributors to the fat content of a menu item. Since the food service industry does not have to offer nutritional labeling and the availability of that information is limited, it is often difficult for patrons to make informed choices regarding the consumption of trans fat while eating out.

In response to this growing concern several U.S. cities have begun the move toward mandating the removal of trans fats in restaurants. The approach so far as been to do this in stages, normally starting off with guidelines stating that all shortening, margarine and oils that are used in cooking contain less than half a milligram of trans fat per serving. Once the first stage is in place the second phase normally involves expanding the half a milligram requirement to other items including baked goods.

This push towards the removal of trans fats is having a pull marketing direction on the distributors as demand for trans fat free cooking oils and ingredients sky rockets. There is also a push marketing effort taking place as the restaurants who have taken the effort to reduce or remove trans fats from their menus are increasing the amount of materials available to their patrons explaining the benefits of being a trans fat free establishment.

Tags: , , , , , ,