The economy remains issue number one

• Americans are dining out less often in the economic downturn, and restaurants are trying to right that trend in different ways:

• Special Offers 

• Earlier this year, Denny's led the charge with a well-publicized giveaway of a free breakfast. Now the chain plans to offer a free Grand Sandwich breakfast sandwich as a perk for customers who bring a friend
• Domino's Pizza and Subway are offering $5 deals
• Jack in the Box restaurants introduce Mini Sirloin Burgers
• Johnny Rockets introduced five varieties of Slider hamburgers, plus mini Hot Dogs and Mini Chili Dogs
• Burger King is selling mini burgers called BK Burger Shots in two-pack and six-pack packages
• Quiznos rolled out a $4 “Toasty Torpedo” sandwich
• Chipotle Mexican Grill known for its premium priced burritos is testing a “Low Roller Menu” and other downsized, lower price selections to boost traffic
• T.G.I. Friday’s continues its promotion of “Right Portion, Right Price”
• The Cheesecake Factory has introduced a 16-item small pate menu
• P.F Chang’s introduced $2 mini desserts

• New Formats 

• German-based Vapiano debuted in Washington, D.C., in 2008. With four locations open in the U.S. and more than 30 worldwide, Vapiano’s founders plan to grow the chain’s domestic presence. Guests order at individual stations rather than at a counter, and they tell the chef how they’d like their meal prepared as it’s being fixed. There are separate pasta, salad, pizza and dessert stations, along with a separate bar area from which customers order. Instead of paying as they go, each order placed is tallied on a magnetic-stripe card that is read at the POS on the customer’s way out the door.

• Following the January Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter, consumer confidence in the ongoing safety of the US food supply fell to 22.5% from a high of 42% in the week prior to the recall according to an ongoing study called “The Continuous Consumer Food Safety/Defense Tracking Study” that is conducted jointly by The Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota and the Louisiana Sate University Agricultural Center
• According to the NPD’s (a leading market research firm) Food Safety Monitor, the percentage of consumers who feel foods served at restaurants are safe has remained between 48 and 49 percent since 2004. 

• Salmonella, E.Coli, trans fatty acids, mercury in fish/seafood, Mad Cow, high fructose corn syrup, artificial growth hormones in milk, genetically modified foods, foot and mouth disease, and meat/milk from cloned animals rank among Americans’ top food safety concerns, according to the most recent NPD Food Safety Monitor

• The latest NPD Food Safety Monitor, which has tracked food safety concerns and eating intentions in the U.S. every other week since 2001, found that in 2007 and 2008, 63 percent agreed with the statement that foods sold in supermarkets are safe, vs. 68 percent who agreed with the statement in 2004.  "I believe consumers’ slipping confidence in the safety of supermarket food is less about food safetyand more about supermarkets expanding foodservice operations and offering more prepared, ready-to-eat foods,” Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst and vice president at NPD, said in a statement. "More food handling issues and concerns come into play when foods are prepared for you. Consumers are now extending the concerns they have about the safety of foods served at restaurants to supermarkets."

• The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWFJ) have released a new report, “Keeping America’s Food Safe: A blueprint for fixing the food safety system at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services,” which examines problems with the current system and proposes ways to improve the food safety functions at the HHS to better protect the nation’s food supply. The report calls for immediate consolidation of food safety leadership within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and ultimately the creation of a separate Food Safety Administration within HHS.
• Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius vowed to make the Food and Drug Administration a "world class" regulatory agency and to work with industry to improve food safety if she is confirmed as Health and Human Services Secretary.  Sebelius told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that it was too soon to talk about splitting FDA's food and drug safety responsibilities into two agencies as some critics have suggested.  "I think step one is restoring FDA as a world-class regulatory agency,"  

Recalls

• Salmonella in Pistachios from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc, in Terra Bella, CA. A two million pound recall. No one sickened.
• Salmonella in Union International Food Company’s (Union City, CA) Dry Spice Products. 42 people sickened.
• Salmonella in Koger lite May.  No one sickened.

• Green products

• Numerous industry appraisals point to the mounting benefits of going green. The National Restaurant Association’s 2009 Restaurant Industry Forecast included a statistic from its 2008 "What’s Hot" survey: 41 percent of chefs say environmentally friendly equipment and practices will be the hottest back-of-house movement in 2009
• Pita Pit franchisees in Philadelphia converted one of their establishments into Philadelphia's first certified-green restaurant and have since enjoyed the multiayered, long-term benefits that sustainlity offers: cheaper costs (or the promise of them), good public relations and the overall warm fuzzies that come withacting for the good of the planet.

• When it comes to selling green products in a bleak economy, researchers at the Hartman Group say marketers may be missing a major opportunity: Using labels to create a story line.  In its ongoing research of people who fall all along the green continuum -- from those who don't participate at all to the most committed organic shoppers -- product labels are far and away the most important source of information for consumers, named by 33%.

• The government's system for tracing foods is riddled with holes, and that could undercut officials' ability to find the source of a disease outbreak or bioterrorism attack, according to a recently released federal report.

• Investigators for the Health and Human Services inspector general's office conducted a test of the tracing system. The result: they were only able to follow five out of 40 foods all the way through the supply chain.

• The ability to trace food is a critical part of investigations into outbreaks of food-borne illness and would be crucial in a bioterrorism attack. Food companies are required by federal law to keep records that would allow investigators to follow suspect foods one step back and one step forward in the supply chain. But the inspector general's investigation found that the records many companies keep are not detailed enough. And one-quarter of the company managers were totally unaware of the record keeping requirements

• Reuben Isbitsky, joint chief executive officer of Timestrip, said its newly developed sensor Timestrip Plus records how long a product has been held above a critical temperature and is extremely affordable, with cost as low as US $0.50 cents per unit depending on batch requirements

• According to Isbitsky,

   “Using the Timestrip Plus adhesive label on product packaging ensures that products that spend excessive periods of time above the correct temperature can be rejected before being displayed in the retail outlet,”

  He said that it is possible to see at a glance how long a product has spent above its safe storage temperature, even if it was at some stage returned to the correct temperature.

  “A viewing window shows the indicator is active by changing colour from white to blue, and as long as the product is held at or under the safe temperature, the colour does not progress.

  “Once the temperature threshold is breached the colour (liquid) moves across a scale, showing how long it has been above that temperature, allowing the user to take the appropriate remedial action. However, on its return trip to the safe temperature, the colour stops progressing,”

  Moreover, he claims, the cost of the sensor is low enough for it to be placed on every unit or case, and in this way, a compromised product can be segregated accurately, saving an entire shipment that might otherwise have been discarded because of suspected temperature abuse

• Is there an opportunity to provide updated training regarding burns/scalds and cuts/knives for the teens and newer workers who are entering the foodservice workplace because of the changing job market?