Mentorship not only opens the door to opportunities that would have never before been accessible, it can also propagate change on a broader scale at the industry level. One such mentorship program is the James Beard Foundation’s Women in Culinary Leadership Program, awarded to women who are aspiring to careers in the culinary industry.
Cindy Pawlcyn, chef and owner of three restaurants in California, is one of the established restaurateurs providing mentorship and leadership training to grantees through the 2016 program. Cindy, along with Minneapolis restaurateur Kim Bartmann — of Barbette, The Third Bird, Pat’s Tap, and many more concepts — explains how they see the role of women evolving in this industry and how mentorship can help.
“There’s not that many women who stick with this business. The more mentoring they get, the more helpful it will be for them to be successful and stay with it long-term.”– Cindy Pawlcyn
Create a supportive kitchen culture
Kim started her career as a line cook in restaurants in Minneapolis. “I had a couple of bad experiences, especially being a woman in the kitchen in the ’80s,” she says. “I quit and vowed I would never work in a restaurant again.”
Eventually, Kim found her way back to the industry when she opened a coffee shop with a friend, and now she has eight restaurants. But early on she struggled to be taken seriously by some of her male colleagues, especially when she became an expeditor and had to tell everyone else what to do. She points to “the usual butt pinching” and the fact that at that time, there were almost no women in the kitchen at all.
Cindy knew she wanted to be a chef when she was as young as 13. She took cooking classes, catered, attended trade school at night throughout high school, and eventually graduated college with a hotel and restaurant management degree. When she was 28 she opened her own restaurant, Mustards Grill, in Napa. “Everybody told me I couldn’t do it because I was a woman,” she recalls. Having to endure name calling and other discriminatory behavior, Cindy says, “some wouldn’t believe it now, what happened in those days.”
When she applied to the Culinary Institute of America, she was told they had filled their quota of women for the next three years and advised to reapply then.
Now, Cindy says the door is opening for women, but she’s still eager to see more women finding success in this business — and that’s where mentorship can help affect change.“I think it’s good for our restaurant community if everybody could have someone that they’re bringing up. When you start being more in a teaching and nurturing and developing mindset to this one person, it spreads to all the rest of them. It’s a good culture.”
Reward people who work hard and want to learn
When asked how they managed to achieve success in the environment of those early days, Cindy and Kim have similar answers: they put their heads down, worked hard, and learned as much as they possibly could.
For Kim, that meant becoming familiar with new ingredients and learning to execute the same dishes and techniques perfectly every time. “The only way you can get that skill set in a kitchen is by having a mentor, a chef, or a teacher teach you how to do it – on-the-job training,” she says. “And to be able to utilize a mentor, you have to be willing to accept the help and learn from other people’s mistakes and successes. Those are rare people in the world.”
Cindy advises not to leave a job before you’ve learned everything you can from that place. “People come in with a pre-determined, ‘I’m going to work here six months or a year and a half,’ but it doesn’t really matter how long it is. It matters how much you get out of that experience.”
Offer real-life training for a broad range of skills
Grantees under Kim will have a program tailored to their goals, but she hopes to mentor someone who wants to learn about multi-unit management, her area of expertise. As manager of eight sets of chefs and front-of-house managers, she offers a unique perspective into the business and operations of a restaurant group.
Similarly, Cindy looks forward to teaching someone how to grow food for a restaurant in Mustards’ garden. They will learn how to harvest, order and plan ahead, work all stations in the front and back of house, work with all of the managers, and build their wine experience by working with local wineries. “I think you have to take the time out of your day to put somebody under your wing, versus just having them work a station,” Cindy explains.
“You have to teach them how your mind thinks and how you make a decision. You have to say how you’re going to do this and why you’re going to do it that way.”
She sees younger team members who come on board and don’t understand what the restaurant business really is — those who just want to be a TV chef. They don’t have management skills or know how to make the business profitable or cost recipes. “You don’t learn that in school, you learn that on the job and facing real day-to-day experiences.”
Make yourself a better, stronger leader
Young chefs aren’t the only ones who benefit from a mentoring relationship; As Cindy and Kim explain, there are massive rewards for the mentors, too. Once you’re explaining your thought processes and nurturing your team, you begin to reexamine and refine your techniques, which is always healthy for the team and the business.
“When they come in and go, ‘why do we do it this way?’ You’ve got to figure out why we do it this way,” says Cindy, because “maybe there is a better way.”
Provide the knowledge and confidence to achieve goals
Kim and Cindy both have benefitted from the support of mentors throughout their careers. Kim opened her coffee shop by maxing out her single mother’s credit card. Later on, she participated in a benefit dinner and was introduced to four female leaders of the Minneapolis food and wine scene: Brenda Langton, Lynne Alpert, Pam Sherman, and Nan Bailey.
“All of the sudden I had somebody to call when I had a really difficult question or a problem that I couldn’t figure out. That can be a really powerful thing, to have that assistance.”
Working with mentors like Rich Melman and Julia Child, Cindy built the skill set and confidence she needed to succeed. Julia taught her to stand her ground, to cook good food, and to use good ingredients. Rich has advised her every time she opened a restaurant; she would call him with questions or challenges (and still does).
She learned to trust herself even when others assured her she wouldn’t succeed. “That’s important, to be able to have confidence in yourself and go out on your own,” she explains, remembering making the decision to walk away from her business partnership of 22 years. “They would mess with me and say, ‘On your own you’re not going to be very good because you don’t know how to do this and that.’ In the end, I knew how to do all that stuff.” And it was because of mentorship.
The James Beard Foundation’s Women in Culinary Leadership Program provides aspiring female chefs and restaurateurs the chance to work with some of the industry’s most influential leaders, building in-depth skills in the front and back of house. Now in its third year, the program aims to break through the glass ceiling of the culinary world. Now accepting applications through February 8th. Learn more and apply here.
From California doubling down on Tuesday night wines to Oregon’s embrace of a new muse to the Savoie finally climbing out of the Jura’s hip-cocked shadow, Jon Bonné lays out the wine stories that will make a difference in 2016…
Why did this year in wine feel so off-kilter? I was wondering that the other day as I took quiet satisfaction in browsing photos of U.S. marshals crushing Rudy Kurniawan’s fake bottles into shards of glass, an epilogue to the era of overkill that brought us the wine world’s biggest fraud. I had that same disorientation, and not in a bad way, when I heard that a major Champagne house, Taittinger, was founding its own sparkling wine property on English soil.
For sure, their move was an affirmation of the surging quality in English sparkling wine, something that’s been happening for years. But it was also upending an 800-year tradition. For centuries the British had crossed the water to opportunistically slake their thirst; now France is reversing the trend. In part, at least, because young growers and small firms in Champagne have captured most of the attention at home. The old guard is now scrambling to find somewhere else to play.
And speaking of those 800 years of pilfering France’s bounty: Bordeaux this year seemed at ends about how to deal with much of the modern world no longer caring about it. The region, which loves prestige and scores like no other, still doesn’t quite seem to have comprehended that Robert Parker, after nearly four decades, wasn’t going to rate its new vintage, having handed off that duty to Neal Martin. (Martin is a terrific critic, and the changing of guard should have been welcome. But Bordeaux doesn’t do change well.)
There was the rosé craze, again. Many of us had spent years pleading its case, only to find in 2015 that those dreams came just a bit too true. From White Girl Rosé (please, no) to brosé (really, no), its popularity didn’t just peak-it crested and began spiraling out of control.
Inevitably, a pink-wine backlash ensued, which wasn’t really fair, because rosé never asked to become a worn-out meme.
And, as if we needed one more confirmation that the wine world’s axis was tilting, Georges Duboeuf, the Beaujolais firm, parted ways with Deutsch Family-the U.S. importer that, together with Duboeuf, created the American thirst for Beaujolais Nouveau-in favor of an importer who plans to focus on Duboeuf’s higher-end cru Beaujolais and other wines. Yeah, Beaujolais is a serious wine now; and yes, we’ve talked about it plenty. But here is the final kicker: Even the king of Nouveau got the memo.
All of these are symbolic milestones on their own. But together, they add up to larger shift that’s been building over the past half-decade: 2015 was the year when wine-good wine-stopped being so damned elitist. It’s no longer a game to be played by dudes in ties or a principality governed by arcane and archaic rules. The old tropes, most of which had been worn out for a while, are now set to be fully retired-as are all those complaints about would-be wine snobs. (Who, pray tell, might these “snobs” be? Anyone who spots the flaws in a load of populist claptrap?)
Even if we’re still sorting out the new rituals and language-please, let us never again say we are “crushing” a bottle of “juice”-wine can now be loved in ways that are both serious and casual. So perhaps 2015 was the last hurrah for the old guard, of a generation consumed by ambition-one that viewed both winemaking and wine buying as a score-driven charge to some arbitrary finish line.
Now to the fun part: What happens next?
Here are five wine stories that will make a difference in 2016.
Muscadet Grows Up
For years, a small band of wine people have been suggesting that Muscadet, the eminently mineral wine of the western Loire, had more to offer than sheer drinkability and friendliness to seafood. We’ve put forward bottles like Luneau-Papin’s Excelsior and Domaine de la Pépière’s Clisson as evidence that these wines can evolve and age just like many white Burgundies, despite the fact that it’s made from the humble melon grape-which isn’t so lowly after all.
But what’s happening today in Muscadet is essentially the white-wine equivalent of what has happened in Beaujolais. A raft of serious-minded producers are discussing not only the terroir of the nine crus communaux (much like a village designation in Burgundy), but specific vineyards and parcels, too-their nuances perceptible thanks to the region’s generally transparent winemaking. (The naturalists are at work, too, making unsulfured and skin-fermented Muscadet.) Since even Chablis has become a bit expensive for daily life, Muscadet is our new white-wine salvation.
Drink these: The wines from : The wines from Vincent Caillé have all the right cred for this new era: organic farming in several of the crus, and minimal work in the cellar. (There’s even an amphora.) Look for his Domaine le Fay d’Homme Monnières-Saint Fiacre ($25), from a cru known for its mix of acidic gneiss and sandy loam; at five years old, the 2010 is flinty and still very young, with a hint of oiliness from four years on its lees. Similarly, the Les Bêtes Curieuses project from Jérémie Huchet and Jérémie Mourat seeks old parcels to show the terroir. Their 2014 La Perdrix de L’Année ($16) finds the right balance of richness and a coppery minerality from a sand-and-granite parcel in Clisson.
Oregon Embraces Its Loire Fetish
As Oregon’s pinot noir industry celebrated its 50th birthday this year, it finally hit a sort of tipping point with the arrival of big players like Burgundy’s Louis Jadot and, perhaps less auspiciously, California’s Caymus (with its big Elouan project). The state’s small-is-good mentality has, thus, come up against the boom that places like Sonoma faced 20 years ago. That left some of the state’s true believers wondering what would come next. Riesling? Yes, in a small way. Chardonnay? Perhaps, but expanding the chardonnay universe is a bit of a fool’s errand.
Instead, some folks on the fringe have advanced a different theory: What if Oregon’s legacy lies not in the echo of Burgundy, but in channeling the Loire? Portland-based wineries like Bow & Arrow, Leah Jørgensen Cellars and Division Winemaking Company have all been pursuing that notion for several years now. But with the indie status of Oregon pinot beginning to tarnish, 2016 may be the year where their notion catches on. In their telling, it’s cabernet franc, gamay noir and chenin blanc that could be the Northwest’s great hope. True, some of them also work with pinot, although their inspiration is still more Loire-where the grape also grows. (Other alt-Oregon proponents will likely rise in this, too, including Brianne Day, who has caught attention for her malvasia and côt-tannat blend; and Teutonic Wine Co., inspired by a region of Europe you can probably guess.)
Drink these: I’ve been admiring Leah Jørgensen’s wines for a few years, especially her Applegate Valley Blanc de Cabernet Franc ($26), which highlights that grape’s peppercorn character, but in the form of a vibrant mostly-white wine. Bow & Arrow’s Air Guitar ($27), a mix of cabernets franc and sauvignon, makes a strong case for both varieties on Oregon soil.
Pét-Nat Lives!
Pétillant naturel is sparkling wine in which the fizz comes from finishing the primary fermentation in a bottle, where gas is trapped. After having its moment for the past couple of years, there’s a growing drumbeat that it is set to fade.
Not so, my trend-spiking amigos. If anything, pét-nat is expanding. Every time I turn around there’s another winemaker trying their hand from California and Oregon to Long Island and the Finger Lakes to nearly every corner of France. (The Loire area of Montlouis even now has its own appellation for so-called pétillant originel, made without added sugar.) In many cases, pét-nat is their opportunity to make something a bit more freeform in nature, closer to craft beer than wine. And good for them: These are pleasing and uncomplicated wines, and yet they have a seriousness-even with the crown caps-that goes completely the opposite direction from the cheap cava and prosecco that once stood for bubbles you could drink when not drinking Champagne. A handful of traditional prosecco makers are even expanding their work with col fondo, a cousin of pét-nat that retains its lees in the bottle.
Drink these: La Grange Tiphaine’s work in the central Loire shows the best aspects of chenin blanc, including their Nouveau Nez Montlouis-sur-Loire Pétillant Originel ($27), as does the Les Capriades Pet’Sec ($26), both of which show the fresh and mineral side of the grape more than its apple-like aspects. In California, look for new versions from Onward, Los Pilares, Scar of the Sea, Cruse Wine Co. and more. From New York, Bellwether (Finger Lakes), Southold Farm + Cellar and Channing Daughters (Long Island) are names to watch, as are Casa Belfi, Costadilá and Casa Coste Piane on the col fondo front.
A Spotlight for The Region That’s Not the Jura
The Savoie is often lumped together with the Jura, even though they share neither proximity nor geology. (It’s a two-hour drive, or about the distance from Meursault to Côte Rotie.)
The Savoie finally seems ready for its well-deserved shot at Jura-like exposure. Some credit can go to Dominique Belluard, whose sparkling and still wines have found a willing audience among serious wine buyers-including a lot of Burg-philes-and to naturalist producers like Jean-Yves Péron. A bit also goes to the oddball parade of grapes, including jacquère and mondeuse, which are propelling that newfound interest. And whatever is left to the fact that the alpine Savoie and nearby Bugey-annotating the western edge of Switzerland as they do-seem like two rare places still untrammeled by a wine world that’s kicking over every stone.
There are plenty of regions trying to rewrite their elevator pitch, whether it’s the New Australia (super exciting, still rather expensive) or Canada or elsewhere. But California’s reformation is still paying dividends, including a bit of progress on one of my major worries about it: that the interesting new wines are too expensive.
Price remains a big concern for California, but the universe of compelling, small-production wines in the $20 to $30 range keeps growing, thanks in part to things like pét-nat, but also the realization that the only way many drinkers will come back to California is if there are wines that share not only their values (usually, a repudiation of Big Wine) but their budget. There’s plenty of work left to do, but we’ll take progress where we can.
Drink these: The La Clarine Farm Jambalaia Rouge ($26) from the Sierra Foothills jumbles up red (mourvedre, grenache), and white (marsanne, fiano, arneis) grapes for a chuggable specimen that’s neither quite red or white, while wine like the Brea Chardonnay ($14) from the Central Coast offers a more virtuous choice for an everyday table wine. And look for bottles from Birichino, Rootdown, Tendu, Jolie-Laide, Leo Steen, P’tit Paysan, Broc Cellars, Ryme Cellars and many more.
Other Stories to Watch
The New Australia, as mentioned above, will finally catch the attention it’s been seeking. Greece, after years of being patted on the head, will rise from its economic muddle to become a serious contender to Spain and Italy-especially with its underappreciated red wines. And finally, as the coverage of sommeliers continues to mature, we’ll see more serious coverage of wine lists, which generate a lot of restaurants’ revenue, and remain a disproportionately small part of the conversation.
From California doubling down on Tuesday night wines to Oregon’s embrace of a new muse to the Savoie finally climbing out of the Jura’s hip-cocked shadow, Jon Bonné lays out the wine stories that will make a difference in 2016.
When it comes to beverages, 2015 was all about craft. In 2016, it’s going a step further to in-house distillation, plus culinary and cocktails will find more common ground, and whisky will longer hold the spirit crown.
1. Nitro Coffee
Coffee’s next iteration, nitro coffee—a cold brew that’s been injected with nitrogen, improving the mouthfeel and drinkability of cold coffee—is being incorporated into alcoholic and non-alcoholic coffee drinks. Nitro tap systems are available for restaurants and coffee shops. The coffee bar at Beatrix from Lettuce Entertain You serves up Caramel Cream Nitro, made with cold brew nitro, house-made caramel, whipped cream and sugar (yum).
2. Creative Gin Drinks
Bartenders are getting creative with classic gin-based drinks—martinis and gin and tonics—using gins aged in whiskey, brandy or rum barrels and infused with the tastes of botanicals or sweetened with hints of vanilla, maple or brown sugar.
3. Locally Produced Beer/Wine/Spirits
A recent trend has emerged of restaurants showcasing beverages produced either in-store or locally. One such example is Denver’s Mile High Spirits, a private label micro-distillery, cocktail lounge and tasting room. The emphasis on locally-produced drinks aims to promote and publicize the efforts of lesser-known breweries and vineyards while offering a unique, home-grown pairing with local food.
4. On-Site Barrel-Aged Spirits
Aging cocktails and spirits in barrels can add a new level of flavor to your drink and soften the harshness of alcohol. Recently, restaurants and bars have been buying their own barrels to age their cocktails/spirits in the store. This is the case at local Denver restaurant La Loma where they age their whiskey in an oak barrel for a few months before serving.
5. Culinary Cocktails
Culinary Cocktails is about looking forward. Many of today’s great chefs are pushing the envelope of cuisine by using fresh ingredients and modern techniques to create attractive, delicious, and stunningly innovative drinks. It doesn’t just stop at chefs though as at-home mixologists are moving this trend into the everyday.
6. Regional Signature Cocktails
The trend of localism is spreading throughout the United States and the same rings true for the restaurant industry. Although you may not know it, most states have their own signature cocktail, typically catering to their specific food profiles. For instance, the Smoked Salmon Bloody Mary uses local Alaska Distillery’s smoked-salmon vodka, highlighting the state’s uniqueness and love for salmon. Regional cocktails add a whole new approach to dining and drinking around the U.S.
7. Shrubs and the Tart Cocktail
When it comes to flavor, fermented foods have been a hit with diners in 2015. From kimchi to the at-home pickling phenomenon, tart flavors have found fans in adventurous and health-conscious eaters. As culinary cocktails become more prevalent (see above), look for this food trend to extend to cocktails in the form of shrubs in 2016. What’s a shrub? It’s a colonial American method of using vinegar to preserve fruit. and will be applied to cocktails as a new way to mix tart drinks. Shrubs fit all the criteria for a trend-worthy concoction: bold flavor, house-made, and reflects the desire for our vices to become a bit healthier.
8. Tap Takeover in Restaurants
Restaurants are becoming more innovative and focused on their beverage programs as a whole, including cocktails. As popularity and familiarity with pre-batch cocktails grow, look for these batches to leap from the bottle to the tap. Restaurants will begin to offer more cocktails on tap to better suit their service demands. On tap cocktails will be especially efficient for restaurants as they begin to sell more complex drinks because timing is so important in a restaurant.
10. Rum Cocktails and Sipping Rums
Tiki bars have brought rum back to the mainstream. They’ve helped elevate rum cocktails from the purgatory of vacation indulgence or captain-and-coke puerility and shown just how varied cocktails made with the sugar cane spirit can be. As the taste for regional flavors grows, look to see rum on the rise. Rum should undergo a similar arc as whiskey did during its (continuing) boom which means we’ll soon see bar patrons began ordering the spirit neat.
As a manager, in a restaurant or otherwise, it is your responsibility to ensure that business is running smoothly. This ranges from how staff is performing to business outcomes. It can be a heavy load. However, there are still many easy and inexpensive things you can do to make sure your establishment is running the way it should and to prevent problems before they occur.
Get involved
No one thinks of the phrase “absentee boss” in a positive context. Being in the establishment is a good start, but you need to get out of your office and on the floor and in the kitchen.
Be seen.
Even if the general manager and/or owner are not, you can be. In fact, putting in the effort to be available to your staff and customers will help you in the end. Employees will respect you all the more, making your job that much easier.
Drop in unexpectedly
When I was working in the industry, my manager would pop in and out all the time. She would tell us that she had an appointment the next morning and was coming in late, then show up early and say that the appointment was rescheduled. After I moved on, she let me in on her little secret and explained that it was her way of keeping everyone on top of their game. And it worked.
The first few times you do this though, it may catch a few off guard. Give them some slack the first few times, but if they don’t shape up, you’ll know and can then do something about it.
Stop by after hours
You know those restaurant ‘spy’ shows where they go undercover to find out who’s behind the business’s shortages? Well, one of the recurring things on those programs is that abuses are happening after hours; bartenders are throwing parties, chefs are using your place for a pop-up restaurant, etc. Well, even though those shows are overdramatized, they’re not off the ball.
To ensure this is not happening at your business, especially if you’ve noticed something suspicious, go in when the place is closed, and do it often. For many restaurants, a drive by will suffice. No lights on and no parked cars are both good signs when the place is supposed to be closed. A similar tactic is to check with your alarm company to see when the alarm was turned on and turned off.
Hire an experienced person for the role of mystery shopper
Again, those ‘spy’ tv shows are on to something here.Using a mystery shopper can help uncover that which you would not discover otherwise. This can be anything from poor service and inconsistencies in food/beverages to comps, and more.
It’s best if your mystery shopper is experienced in restaurant and hospitality operations and someone you’re familiar with, but you’re employees are not.
Also, having your mystery shopper visit regularly will allow him or her to form relationships with your staff, increasing access to what’s going on behind the scenes.
Do an accurate inventory, and do it often
Whether you’re responsible for both food and beverages, or just one or the other, don’t just do an inventory on one time of item or before placing weekly orders. If possible, aim to do a thorough inventory 2-3 times per week. While inventory should always be done when the business is closed, don’t do it on the same days every week.
This is a lot to take on, but there are tools that can help. It’ll be worth it in the end; you’ll not only be protecting the business from unnecessary spending but also ensuring that business operations are running as they should.
Rotate staff between units and shifts
The more comfortable staff is with each other the more likely they will get together to do things that should not be done. This is a tough tightrope to walk.
You need to have people together enough that they work smoothly with each other, but not consistent enough to become overly friendly.
The side benefit of this is that everyone starts knowing how to work with everyone else, which is a plus if you have to switch around people for special events, staffing shortages, etc.
The bottom line is that there are several small steps that you can take to tighten up business operations and ensure that everything is being run as it should be.
In 2016, more than ever, consumers and retailers will dictate which food trends will dominate in the industry.
1. Agnosticism
Whose customer is it anyway? Consumers are becoming brand agnostic. Retailer agnostic. Daypart agnostic. Amazon started it all as they own the customer experience and the brands they offer have little or no relationship with the buyer. Brands like Hilton or Starwood know less about you than Expedia or Kayak.
Because of the sophisticated online tools, consumers no longer care which hotel brands they book.
Their preferences are stored and become richer in data and proactively make suggestions to ensure each experience is successful. This is the trend brands should be most worried about as retailers lose their relationships with food shoppers to apps like Instacart and Uber Eats who are making the retailer or restaurant practically invisible as they continue to offer choices from multiple outlets. They own the customer. For supermarkets to win back the relationship they must become a one-stop “eco-system” similar to Yelp’s Eat 24: offering reviews, recipes, selection, ordering, ePayment, tracking and delivery. It’s time to fight for that shopper relationship.
2. Have it your way
This trend goes well beyond the now-retired Burger King TV slogan as segmentation and personalization continue to grow in importance. Shoppers want retailers to recognize and inspire them. Every shopping trip. Every product. Hartman predicts that by 2020 mid-market consumers will become more selective and continue to upgrade their culinary and healthy eating skills.
Not just for food seeking Millennials, or the top 1% – personalization will become pervasive.
This finally brings to reality the concept that Martha Rodgers and Don Peppers first wrote about in The One-to-One Future back in 1993. Food retailers will need to curate their offerings, and understand what all of their customers’ wants and desires truly are if they will remain in business and grow and compete with online sellers who continue to hone their algorithms and offerings based on purchase history.
Preemptive distribution will begin to take hold as shoppers become more familiar with the same price, hand delivery, expert benefits from retailers like enjoy.com. Personalization moves from being a plus for some to a must-have for all.
3. Bioregions
“Local” has been one of the biggest trends in the supermarket aisles for almost ten years. It is an unsustainable trend as weather conditions and climate change force changes to the sourcing of foods. Think bioregions. Nature defines the regions for what crops and livestock grow and thrive best in which climates, and we will see changes accordingly.
Think about this: California farmers moving to Georgia because of the cost of water. More wines coming from South Carolina. Produce growers moving to Peru.
A recent study by A.T. Kearney found that women and children are willing to pay more for locally produced food. The ultimate in local? Growing lettuces, herbs and yes even kale in your own kitchen year-round without herbicides. Perhaps the ultimate in bioregions? The Urban Cultivator and Grove are coming to your home very soon.
4. Micro-stores
Far from the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink hypermarkets, look for smaller, neighborhood grocers to spring up. These stores, such as ALDI (with over 1,400 locations in the U.S. and counting), Bfresh in Boston, Green Zebra in Portland are more relaxed, attentive and curated, with a heavy emphasis on products that Millennials yearn for, and buy.
Excellent private and exclusive brands with prices that this generation can afford.
Think about Lund’s & Byerlys’ Kitchen with 17,000 square ft that includes a 4,000 square foot sit-down restaurant and scores of local beers on tap. These retailers are proactive offering benefits to their shoppers, to build that relationship across many touch points. One example is how ALDI announced their decision to remove certified synthetic colors, partially hydrogenated oils and MSG from all its exclusive brand foods by the end of 2015.
Look for these micro-stores to take a stand and dispel the belief that you need to stock 50,000 SKUs to be successful, or that you have to serve everyone everything.
5. A new way of eating
Beware of Dr. Google. Your shoppers now rely on search engines to find out about diets, health issues, nutrition and what they should be eating. According to the 2015 SupermarketGuru National Grocers Association Consumer Survey, the internet is the number one source for nutrition information and as almost 50% of people in the U.S. say their diet could be healthier. This trend will continue – unless stores can disrupt the pattern by offering retail dietitians, health fairs and a 24/7 source of unbiased food and health information.
In 2016, we will see new kinds of proteins that are more sustainable and affordable than animal sources. Algae, nuts, vegetable, yeast and even insects will be used as ingredients to up the protein punch and we will see development of new healthier profiles such as Thrive – a cooking and salad oil made from algae that has 75% less saturated fat than olive oil and has the highest level of monounsaturated fat.
Look for an emphasis on “less is more” – fewer ingredients, and many more products touting their “free from” claims – free from growth hormones, free from GMOs and even stoic brand like Kraft Mac & Cheese and kids’ breakfast cereals highlighting their free from “artificial” claims. 28% of shoppers want minimal processing and one-quarter say they want a short list of ingredients. IFIC’s Annual Food & Health Survey reports that 36% of shoppers say they worry about chemicals in their foods; and foods labeled with a health attribute have enjoyed a sales increase of 13% in the last year, vs. overall flat sales throughout the store.
6. Technology to the rescue
In every way, from supply chain to point-of-sale systems to loyalty and more, technology continues to affect the food retail industry, and there’s no chance of that stopping. But as so many technologies flood the market, some of them aren’t that reliable.
Retailers should be certain they have accurate and relevant information on their websites and apps, so shoppers don’t have to go to other sources.
We cherish our mobile devices, and believe everything that is on the screen. The opportunity to retain a shopper relationship will come through information, service and empowerment. Now more than ever we need to equip store level personnel with information and technologies that can answer the questions that shoppers have. To create a food experience like no other with tastings and classes. To truly be the center of a community.
What will 2016 be like? More mobile. More delivery. More artisan. More curated. More delivered. More nutrition. More expensive.
