Food

If you’ve ever used a chamber vacuum sealer, you know the process is dramatic. Place a plastic pouch containing food — a nice filet, we’ll say — inside the chamber. Start the cycle and air is removed from the chamber. At the end of the cycle, when air re-enters the chamber, the sealed pouch shrinks around the filet. The result: it stays fresh and looks good for longer.

But what happens when a chef seals delicate, fragile or sharp-edged foods? Will they be crushed, or puncture the pouch? Not if you have adjustable Soft Air.

One of the coolest components of the new PrimaVac™ commercial vacuum sealer line is the JetAire™ rotary vane pump inside.

But why should you care about what’s inside a chamber sealer? You just want it to work. 

Exactly. We know that in a busy kitchen, there’s only one time the kitchen staff are thinking about the inner workings of their equipment: when something breaks. That’s why we designed the  JetAire™ pump to be incredibly durable, reliably powerful, and easy to maintain.

They always order the tofu curry, but they’re OK with chicken broth in tom kha soup. They say no to spaghetti with meatballs and yes to spaghetti carbonara. They ask for the veggie burger — with bacon.

They’re the flexitarians: people who follow a primarily plant-based diet, but aren’t averse to eating small amounts of meat. And their ranks are growing fast. But how can restaurants capture this hard-to-pin-down diner?

Freshëns Fresh Food Studio is known for serving delicious and healthy food and smoothies to people on the go. A pioneer in the fast casual space, Freshëns has more than 500 locations, including 300 college campuses.

Among foodservice operators, Freshëns is beloved for its streamlined systems. A licensee can open up a smoothie bar, train staff rapidly, and serve a high-quality product. How does Freshëns keep everything simple and maintain consistently high standards? Joe Sardina, Vice President of Operations, shares some of the company’s strategies.

Your mother was wrong: Breakfast probably isn’t the most important meal of the day — from a health standpoint, anyway. From the perspective of restaurant operators, however, breakfast is very important indeed.

At a time when restaurant sales are slumping, breakfast consumption continues to climb. The NPD Group’s research forecasts breakfast occasions (both in restaurants and at home) will grow by 5 percent through 2019. If you’re currently offering breakfast, are you hitting customers’ sweet spots? And if you’re not, is it time to expand into this segment? It’s worth keeping an eye on current breakfast trends. 

Purple cauliflower. Congee. Skhug sauce. Cajeta. Chermoula.

Are you scratching your head? Don’t worry: Restaurateurs across the country are doing the same. These five foods are among dozens, if not hundreds, predicted to be the flavor trends of 2017. (And in case you, like us, need a cheat sheet: congee = rice porridge, skhug = Yemeni/Israeli hot sauce, cajeta = a sweet, caramelized goat’s milk sauce and chermoula = a green Moroccan marinade made with lemon and herbs). 

But how popular will these, or any other, fashionable flavors really be with your diners? Here are a few tips for identifying food trends worth following.

Two years after Panera announced its commitment to "clean" eating, the mega-chain announced in January 2017 that it had reached the finish line. Panera systematically eliminated the 96 ingredients on its No No List, ingredients as varied (and common) as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrolyzed soy protein and FD&C colors. “Panera is the first national restaurant company to make such a comprehensive commitment and, more importantly, to meet it,” the company proclaimed.

It won’t be the last, however. Many of the nation’s largest restaurant chains are working to clear their menus of ingredients that health-conscious consumers find objectionable, and 2017 may be the year that “clean eating” truly goes mainstream in the foodservice industry. Is it worth making the switch? Here’s a closer look at what the big brands are doing.

Menus are going to look a little different on May 5, 2017. That’s the deadline set by the Food and Drug Administration for restaurants with 20-plus locations to provide nutrition information to their customers. Calorie counts must be featured prominently on menus, and detailed nutrition information must be made available in restaurants. Do you operate one of the estimated 278,600 restaurant locations affected by the menu-labeling law? We’ve answered six questions many operators are asking.

As if losing David Bowie and Prince weren’t bad enough, 2016 was also a gloomy year for the restaurant industry. In terms of sales, it was the worst year since the end of the recession, reports The Restaurant Industry Snapshot from TDn2K, which tracks weekly sales from nearly 26,000 restaurant units and more than 130 brands.

“Traffic growth year-to-date has been -3.0 percent, a very troubling scenario compared with the -0.8 percent reported for all of 2015,” Victor Fernandez, Executive Director of Insights and Knowledge for TDn2K, said in an October 2016 release.

If the slowdown continues, what can operators do about it? Here’s a rundown on the causes of the restaurant recession, plus some ideas for boosting business.

Diners want better, healthier, cleaner food — faster. They want it this second, actually.

That’s why delivery-focused restaurants are taking off. Look at Chicago’s Eat Purely, which promises chef-made organic meals delivered in 20 minutes. Sales have doubled each month since Eat Purely opened in March 2016. Millennials especially love when people bring them food; about 20 percent of the restaurant meals they eat are delivered.

The rise in delivery demand promises good things for restaurants: higher order volume, increased sales during off-peak hours, and lower front-of-house costs. It also presents some problems, including quality control challenges and high commissions for delivery partners. We take a closer look at the future of restaurant delivery.