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McDONALD'S CEO FACES FRANCHISEE REBELLION, BRAND IS IN A 'DEEP DEPRESSION' AND FACING 'ITS FINAL DAYS'

Can McDonald's new CEO Steve Easterbrook lead the company through a franchisee rebellion? (Click Image To Enlarge)

According to a new survey, McDonald's franchisees believe the brand is in a "deep depression" and could be facing its "final days." 

One franchisee wrote in response to the survey by Nomura analyst Mark Kalinowski.

"We are in the throes of a deep depression, and nothing is changing.  Probably 30% of operators are insolvent."

Another wrote,

"The CEO is sowing the seeds of our demise. We are a quick-serve fast-food restaurant, not a fast casual like Five Guys or Chipotle. The system may be facing its final days."

More than a dozen franchisees expressed frustration with McDonald's management, saying that CEO Steve Easterbrook's turnaround plan — which includes initiatives like all-day breakfast and a shift to digital ordering kiosks — is a distraction from the core issues of McDonald's, like food quality and customer service.

One franchisee wrote.

"The lack of consistent leadership from Oak Brook is frightening, we continue to jump from one failed initiative to another." 

A second wrote.

"I have been in this business since the early 1970s but have not seen us this leaderless in all my time."

The company's reaction to their frustration, one franchisee claimed, is for operators to "get out of the system" and quit the business.

Several franchisees complained about all-day breakfast, saying that it has complicated kitchen operations and goes against Easterbrook's repeated promises to simplify the menu.

One franchisee wrote.

"The system is very lost at the moment.  Our menu boards are still bloated, and we are still trying to be too many things to too many people. ... Things are broken from the franchisee perspective."

Franchisees also criticized the "Create Your Taste" program, which allows people to customize their burgers with premium ingredients.

One franchisee wrote.  

"They are throwing everything they can against the wall to see what will stick." 

Kalinowski interviewed 29 US franchisees covering about 226 restaurants for the survey. McDonald's has more than 14,000 restaurants in the US. 

In response to the survey, McDonald's said it's hearing a different story from franchisees — specifically pertaining to all-day breakfast. 

A company spokeswoman told Business Insider.

"We’re hearing from customers and the overwhelming majority of our 3,100 franchisees that all-day breakfast is a hit!  In fact, since the launch, McDonald’s has reached its highest brand score in two years according to YouGov BrandIndex."

McDonald's is trying to revive business following seven straight quarters of same-store sales declines in the US.

In addition to adding all-day breakfast and "Create Your Taste," McDonald's has also made some changes to its core menu items.

The company started toasting its hamburger buns longer, making its beef patties slightly larger, and changing how the patties are seared.

McDonald's has also announced plans to remove antibiotics from its chicken.

There are at least a few franchisees who are on board with the changes.

Among the myriad negative responses to Kalinowski's survey, several franchisees expressed hopeful attitudes.

One wrote.

"I think our leadership is headed in the right direction.  It will take time."

Another said.

"The CEO seems to be doing OK so far!"

COMMENTARY:    Although McDonald's new CEO Steve Easterbrook does not have the confidence of a lot of franchisees, there seems to be a disconnect between how McDonald's shareholders perceive Easterbrook's leadership and how the franchisees feel about him.  Proof this lies in the performance of McDonald's share price.    

McDonald's Stock Up 10% For Year

McDonald’s has been the target of relentless analyst fire for all of 2015; yet here we are in mid-October and McDonald’s shares are up 10% for the year. This week they hit a new all-time high of $103.84.

McDonald's Corporation Share Prices Last Five Years - Jan 2011 Through Oct 2015 - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

McDonald's Brand Stronger Than Ever

The naysayers mistakenly aim at the small target, but they miss the big picture: McDonald’s formidable brand recognition and performance-oriented culture virtually guarantee long-term success.

On the former, McDonald’s is a top 10 global brand, according to Interbrand, a brand management consultant. McDonald’s ranks ninth on Interbrand’s list, with a $42.3 billion market value. Strong brands have the same effect on consumers that magnets have on metal shavings – they draw them in.

McDonald’s magnetism is especially strong on kids, and not just kids in the United States. Here, I speak from experience. On a weekday road trip from Antibes, France to Geneva, Switzerland, my wife and I stopped at a McDonald’s near Digne, France. We stopped not because of hunger, but because of curiosity. The parking lot was packed.  When we walked in, we found a restaurant overflowing with middle-school-aged kids. So much for indomitable French cuisine.

McDonald's Culture Remains The Same 

But it’s really McDonald’s culture that magnetizes the brand. As Steve Wynn, chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN), said in a 2014 Wall Street Journal interview,

“You got the culture, you got the problem solved.”

McDonald’s has the culture, and has had the culture for decades, so the problem always gets solved.

Franchisee Rebellion Is A Distinct Possibility

After much anticipation, the newly installed chief executive officer of McDonald's, Steve Easterbrook, has announced a sweeping turnaround plan aimed at cutting annual costs by around $300 million at the struggling fast-food behemoth. Wall Street was unimpressed: the stock fell after Easterbrook made his announcement.

But a far important constituency is also grumbling: the franchisees who own most of the outlets. Many have already expressed skepticism about Easterbrook's leadership, complaining that McDonald's was imposing new burdens, products and obligations without any understanding of the strain the changes will place on franchise owners.

There's little evidence that Easterbrook's plans to turn McDonald's into a "modern, progressive burger company" -- which include selling 3,500 of the restaurants it owns -- allayed the concerns of the franchise owners, who have experienced falling sales in many parts of the world.

Easterbrook's plan seemed largely aimed at creating value for shareholders, not helping franchisees. The vexed history of franchising suggests it may be a mistake to disregard this constituency.

After World War II, McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants introduced "business format" franchises. Unlike conventional franchises, this wasn't a way to delegate distribution; it was a means to sell an entire way of life to aspiring small-business owners. McDonald's founder Ray Kroc described this as an "updated version of the American Dream," and his company, along with Howard Johnson's and other restaurants, made it a mainstream phenomenon.

In business-format franchising, the parent company maintains a rigorous level of control over franchisees, holding them to standards of appearance, cooking times, the dress of employees, accounting methods, and just about anything else that can be standardized and controlled. McDonald's went so far as to create its famed "Hamburger University" in 1961.

In principle, this insured success for both the corporation and the franchise owners. But in practice it relegated franchisees to a genuinely subordinate position. Harold Brown, a lawyer and critic of business format franchising claimed in 1970 that "numerous franchisors have stated that their franchisees are like children, demanding constant discipline and control."

This attitude didn't always sit so well with franchisees. The control imposed from above was fine so long as the decisions made at corporate headquarters worked well on the ground, but that wasn't always the case. In the late 1960s, a number of high-profile franchising ventures ended in revolts. 

• Domino's Pizza, for example, expanded its franchise operations throughout the 1960s, but failed to deliver sufficient support, financing and training. Profits plummeted and the company almost went bankrupt in 1969.  Two years later, enraged franchise holders sued Domino's, alleging that the corporation had imposed obligations on outlets without providing the necessary support. There was much anger as well at Domino's insistence that outlets only purchase supplies from the parent company or an approved supplier. Eventually, Domino's bought out the embittered franchisees, increasing the number of outlets under direct ownership.
• Chicken Delight, founded in 1952, expanded over the course of the succeeding decade, but then failed to deliver the necessary support to franchise owners, despite forcing them to pay the corporation higher prices for everything from paper plates to batter for the chicken. A number of franchisees eventually sued the company, setting in motion a chain of events that led to what the Wall Street Journal described in 1972 as "the virtual dismantling of the Chicken Delight organization."
• Shakey's Pizza, Mister Donut and other companies faced similar revolts around the same time. Some, notably Mr. Donut, mended fences with their franchisees, granting them increased control over local decision-making, financing, accounting, and even the expenditure of ad dollars. Others moved away from top-down decision-making, setting up venues where franchisees could express their concerns. Still others sought to curtail the number of franchises, bringing stores back under corporate control. All of this worked: many companies turned around, and the reputation of business-format franchising eventually improved.

McDonald's, which sailed through this period without problems, might want to take a page from the past as it tries to right the ship. It's suffering from many of the same problems. In a recent survey, franchisees struck much the same tone as their disgruntled predecessors of the 1960s, citing an out-touch management that seems more interested in off-loading costs onto franchisees than fixing the problems that beset the chain.

Unfortunately, Easterbrook's turnaround plan made almost no mention of the franchisees that are the public face of the company. Worse still, is his vow to increase the number of stores in the hands of franchisees from 81 percent to 90 percent — which some franchisees believe will make the company even more remote from the concerns of the owners on the front lines.

Easterbrooks Turnaround Plan

In May 6, 2015, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook announced a restructuring plan to help it compete with fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill. To foster a quicker reaction to changing trends, McDonald’s is restructuring its units into four groups based on the maturity of its presence in the particular market, where previously the business was segmented by geography.

• The flagship U.S. market.
• Established international markets such as Australia and the United Kingdom.
• High-growth markets such as China and Russia.
• The rest of the world.

McDonalds also said that 90 percent of its more than 36,200 restaurants around the world will be franchised over the next four years. This is up from 81 percent currently, and will mean the company will rely more heavily on franchising fees and move away from the daily running of restaurants. The organizational changes will contribute to 300 million dollars in cost-cutting targeted by McDonald's, most of which will be realized by 2017.

The company is working on streamlining its menu recently cutting seven items including the Deluxe Quarter Pounder burger and six chicken sandwiches, while at the same time working on improving perceptions about the quality of its food with a trio of new sirloin burgers being added.

Standard and Poors were left underwhelmed by the plan and subsequently downgraded their rating on McDonalds to A-, while Moody’s put their rating on review for downgrade. Both rating agencies showed concern over McDonald's plans to return between 8 and 9 billion to shareholders in 2015 and to hit the high end of its 18 to 20 billion 3-year goal by the end of 2016, worrying that any stock repurchases will be at the expense of higher debt levels than initially anticipated.

The fast food chain in April reported first-quarter comparable sales down 2.3% and revenue of 5.96 billion, falling short of the 6.02 billion analysts had expected. Unfortunately for McDonalds shareholders, the quarterly results were a familiar tale, which for nearly two years has seen its share price fall and same-store sales crumble in the U.S. market and abroad.

Conclusion

Having served as the CFO for a tanning salon franchise, I was at the forefront of a franchisee rebellion. This taught me some valuable lessons:  1) Do not deviate from your core franchise principles and vision, 2) Always deliver on your franchise promises, 3) Select the most qualified and experienced franchisee owner/manages, 4) Location, location, location, select the best franchisee locations, 5) Invest in adequately training and providing marketing support to your your franchisee network 6) Don't let unresolved problems and differences vent themselves into an allout franchisee rebellion.

It would not surprise me if McDonads top management has ignored or strayed away from some of the above franchise must-do's.  In many businesses the customer comes first, but in a franchising business environment, the franchisees come first, because they are the face of McDonalds.  It is doubtful that the vast majority of McDonalds customers know who McDonald's CEO is.  They don't care either. They want their Big Mac sandwich made exactly the same each time they visit and served as quickly as possible.  

By paying more attention to the bottom line and improving shareholder value, McDonalds top management may have violated one of the most important covenants of franchising.  Take care of the franchisees, and they will take care of you.

Courtesy of an artricle dated August 9, 2015 appearing in Bloomberg, an article dated October 19, 2015 appearing in ETF Daily News, and an article dated October 16, 2015 appearing in Business Insider

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PRINTSOME, A U.K. T-SHIRT PRINTER, DESIGNS BEERS MADE BY FACEBOOK, APPLE AND NIKE AND THE RESULTS ARE HILLARIOUS

So, the folks over at Printsome, a U.K. T-shirt printing service, were getting hammered one evening (by their own admission, "beers weren't lacking") and somehow the discussion turned to how Facebook would taste if it were a beer.

I think most people would say the flavor would change every few months at the whim of its advertising partners, but Printsome took things one step further and made a whole beer identity for Facebook. They did the same for Nike, Apple, the Arsenal football club and themselves, deciding flavor, label design, alcohol content and desired audience for each.

The label designs are pretty standard for projects like this, but the writeups are fun. They decided Nike beer would be low-cal and full of taurine, which sounds exactly like something Nike would do, and that Apple's iBeer would be an organic cider/beer monstrosity of some kind. I would have made it an iPA, but then again, I'm a pun-loving colonial savage.

Facebook's Facebrew beer would make even Zuck proud (Click Image To Enlarge)

Apple's iBrew beer would make Steve Jobs turn in his grave, but Apple evangelists would still buy it jsut because Apple brewed it (Click Image To Enlarge)

 

Nike's Just Drink It beer would have Nike fans saying "I'll have another" (Click Image To Enlarge)

Arsenal's London Ale is the perfect compliment to any British football game (Click Image To Enlarge)

Printsome's Drink Some beer should be printed on T-Shirts Now because I would buy one (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:   I think Printsome mightr be on to something.  I like the idea of printing branded T-shirts with hillarious products.  I have a feeling that Zuck would love to have his own brew but would he include his brew over Red Bull now being offered to Facebook staffer's during Hack-A-Thon's?  Hell yes, why not.   

Courtesy of an article dated July 10, 2015 appearing in AdWeek 

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THE LAPKA BREATH ALCOHOL MONITOR (BAM) COULD BE THE ONLY ALCOHOL BREATHALYZER YOU'LL EVER NEED

THE LAPKA BREATH ALCOHOL MONITOR (BAM) LOOKS LIKE IT COULD HAVE BEEN DESIGNED BY JONY IVE AFTER SOME BINGE DRINKING. BUT THE TRULY GENIUS PART IS THIS: THE DRUNKER YOU GET, THE EASIER IT IS TO USE. HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE!

There's no shortage of cheap breathalyzers out there. In fact, if your holidays were anything like mine, you were probably blowing 0.09 into a cheap $10 model on Christmas morning, courtesy of Santa, who picked it up at a local gas station and slipped it into your stocking.

 

Given that we live in such a world, it's pretty hard to imagine anyone forking over $200 for a breathalyzer, but Lapka might just convince you to do it. Not only is this breathalyzer beautifully designed -- it looks as if the transdimensional aliens at the other end of the Monolith in 2001 tried their hand at measuring blood alcohol levels -- but it has a UI that actually changes along with your sobriety.

Click Image To Enlarge

The instructions manual starts off with both 500 words of free verse and an instrumental track, so you know that this isn't just some common breathalyzer: it's meant to be a kind of transcendental objét. This is just silly marketing bombast, but even so, the BAM is undeniably a pretty object, with some sleek, minimal design chops.

And unlike most breathalyzers, the device is designed so that you don't need a mouthpiece. Instead, you simply cup the BAM in your palm and gently blow into it for only four seconds to get an accurate reading. There's no beeping lights, no readouts: as soon as you begin breathing into the BAM, it connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android smartphone, and an associated app gives you your blood alcohol reading.

While the BAM’s hardware is undeniably attractive -- this is the breathalyzer equivalent in both design and price to the 2013 Mac Pro -- it's the app that is truly innovative. It features a UI that actually changes itself according to your blood alcohol content. Simply put? The drunker you get, the easier the app becomes to read and understand.

Click Image To Enlarge

As the evening progresses and the drinks pile up, the Lapka BAM changes its interface to match. At 0.13% BAC, the interface elements, such as software buttons, tap targets and fonts, begin to change color and size to be easier to understand to the alcohol-addled. And once you get into binge-drinking territory, the Lapka BAM app becomes the equivalent of a big, red STOP sign, warning you it's time to call a cab and go home before your liver quits on you.

The tricks the Lapka BAM is employing to have an interface that adjusts itself according to drunkenness isn't hard to comprehend, yet this is actually the future of UI: interfaces that adapt themselves not only to your capabilities, but your disabilities -- self-inflicted or otherwise -- as well. It's good design that simply gets more artful and elegant the more artless and clumsy you become.

You can purchase the Lapka Breath Alcohol Monitor from the official site for $200.

COMMENTARY:   This is one breathalyzer that I recommend that you get in order to detect whether the alcohol levels in your blood exceed those that put you in the category of legally drunk.   But, let's be serious, it is always best to have a non-drinking designated driver to get you back home.  That's the only safe way to prevent being arrested, losing your license and placed on probation for a year (california law).    

Courtesy of an article dated December 31, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

STARBUCKS OPENS NEW ORLEANS STORE WITH THE LOOK OF A SPEAKEASY WHILE RETAINING THE OLD NOLA JAZZY CHARM

THE COFFEE COMPANY EVOKES EARLY 1900S MERCHANT CULTURE FOR ITS LATEST OUTPOST IN NEW ORLEANS'S FRENCH QUARTER.

Starbucks has opened a new store in New Orleans that's designed to channel the mystical feel of the city itself. Evocative of an early 1900s apothecary, the store is latest in Starbucks's portfolio of hyper-local shops aimed at being part of a neighborhood's culture, rather than disturbing it.

 A mix of local and Atlanta-based artists created a mural, wrought iron chandeliers, and a hanging mobile of brass jazz instruments. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Andrew Bello, a design director for Starbucks, says.  

“We discovered New Orleans’s history as an import-export shipping port.  There was a time [in the early 1900s] when it was the largest coffee importer in the area.”

For the exterior, the team preserved some original architectural details and used wrought iron, a material found on facades and balconies throughout the French Quarter. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Bello and his team ran with their imaginations, designing the space as if it were the home and store of an old-timey merchant. Floor to ceiling shelves sit behind the register. Back then, Bello says, “those shelves would be filled with boxes and bags and herbs and spices--and coffee.” Today, of course, they’re stacked with bags of Starbucks coffee.

To bring that to life, they built floor-to-ceiling shelves behind the counter. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The lettering is on the bathroom door--in part because the new outpost belongs to a growing portfolio of stores that have what Bello and Starbucks designers call, “local relevance.” 

The philosophy behind “local relevance” is that a trip to Starbucks can be a more faceted experience than just getting a reliable cup of coffee. Even simple actions like a customer posting a picture of the store to Instagram, or actually telling a friend about a visit to Starbucks, are measurements of this.  He says.  

“Hopefully customers discover something new when they return to the store.”

 

In this case, the design team imagined the space as an early 1900s-era merchant shop. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Any visitor that goes to New Orleans is going to walk down that street.  It bifurcates two parts of the city: the downtown business district, and the gentrifying warehouse district.  The goal? Let tourists be on vacation, and make locals feel at home, all in one place.

Back then, Bello says, 'those shelves would be filled with boxes and bags and herbs and spices--and coffee.' Today, of course, they’re stacked with bags of Starbucks coffee. (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:   This New Orleans Starbucks definitely retains the "old world" charm while showcasing today's upbeat speakeasy and dixieland jazz atmosphere.  I wonder if they will serve bourbon coffee with whipped cream.  I say do it, break from tradition, and whoo the drinking and happiness crowd.

Courtesy of an article dated December 13, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

STARBUCKS LAUNCHES A STORE INSIDE A SWISS COMMUTER TRAIN, COMPLETE WITH WOOD TALBES, LEATHER CHAIRS AND HOT JAVA

WHAT IF YOU COULD SIT INSIDE A COZY STARBUCKS DURING YOUR MORNING COMMUTE? NOW, COMMUTERS IN SWITZERLAND CAN DO JUST THAT.

Starbucks locations already seem to be everywhere you look. But starting November 21, the company will take on a new frontier: trains. Starbucks, with the help of Swiss train company SBB, has converted a double-decker car running from Geneva Airport to St. Gallen in Switzerland into a fully functional Starbucks store, complete with wood tables, leather chairs, and, in another first for the company, waitstaff.

Click Image To Enlarge

Starbucks is no stranger to new concept stores. Strategically, its train is probably most like its mass-fabricated popup store. It's an idea the coffee giant is putting into the wild to see if it might scale because, while big storefronts represent the core of its business, smaller, niche Starbucks offer an opportunity to expand through unused, underserved cracks.

Click Image To Enlarge

Muller says.

"The Starbucks train cafe's goal is to offer commuters a wonderful experience. We wanted to make sure it feels like a club and that you could see a person across the room, so the train feels more spacious.”

Click Image To Enlarge

So the challenge was not just to fit a coffee counter into the corner, but to pull in all of the elements we associate with Starbucks into a stock mass-commuting platform. That meant accounting for weight, electrical, and fire-safety requirements, of course, but it also meant attaching all those windowed bar seats, shared tables, and the cozy armchairs to the same skeleton of fasteners that seating inside a typical train car would use. In other words, Starbucks architects had to design a whole new social floor plan using the exact same anchors of an old commuter-centric one.

Click Image To Enlarge

Muller says.  

“Just because it’s functional doesn’t mean it can’t be engaging.  So we asked, ‘Why can’t we?’ Just because we’re on a train, why can’t it be more comfortable?”

Click Image To Enlarge

(too flammable) and to create solutions (like bucking convention by deploying them anyway). In this case, the solution was opting to treat the wood to be flame retardant, plus use of thinner pieces wherever possible (because less wood essentially equates to less kindling). That approach still sounds simpler than it was, of course: Every table and chair was designed and built from scratch and tested by regulators.

Click Image To Enlarge

Muller explains.  

“You design a new chair, maybe one version is light cream and one in dark cream.  You build eight of each, they set them afire, and if you have a high score, you pass.”

In the end, designers were able to seat 50 commuters at once--just six fewer than a stock train car--while also having the same three core seating arrangements you find in a Starbucks store for different customers: Commuters just one stop from their destination may snag a stool at the bar, while those on a longer journey could head upstairs to sit in a plush armchair or at a shared “community table, to use your laptop or have lunch.”

Click Image To Enlarge

Furniture aside, it’s all of the small touches that make the project so compelling. The bottom floor was carpeted to absorb noise in the space. Surfaces have clocklike maple inlays to acknowledge Switzerland’s love affair with timepieces. A waiter takes and delivers an order upstairs so that people wouldn’t need to claim their seat, run downstairs to the line, and run back up--which Starbucks designers witnessed happening in their own field research. (A waiter can also serve the ground floor for good measure.) And in a very cool touch, tables are treated to have a textured surface, plus they wobble the slightest bit as a train comes into the station, to prevent spilling your coffee.

Click Image To Enlarge

In a world of travel increasingly chasing new ways to charge for a few inches of legroom, Starbucks’s latest concept has certain promise: that travel can still be as much about the journey as the destination--assuming other companies make the effort.

Muller concludes.  

“I wonder sometimes that our customers won’t understand truly what this took.”

And, of course, they won’t, which is a hallmark of any good design, isn’t it?

COMMENTARY:   This is a great idea, but I would've preferred PEET's coffee.  It's just better coffee.   Just the same, it's an idea that makes sense.

Courtesy of an article dated November 13, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

HOW DOGFISH HEAD TEAMED WITH COLEMAN TO COMPLIMENT THEIR "FOOD-CENTRIC" BEER WITH THEIR SAUSAGE AND OTHER GOODIES

These are Dogfish Head's new sausages, made in a collaboration with Coleman Natural Foods. (Click Image To Enlarge)

DOGFISH HEAD HAS TEAMED WITH COLEMAN TO CREATE A LINE OF SAUSAGES WITH A TWIST: THEY’RE SPECIALLY FORMULATED TO PAIR WITH SPECIFIC DOGFISH HEAD BEERS.

I bite into a perfectly cooked bratwurst, but I don’t taste bratwurst. I taste honey and apricots--maybe even the hint of a saison. And as I follow the bit up with a swig of an oak-aged IPA, I can taste as the sweetness of the pork transitions seamlessly to vanilla and then to hops, a continuum of flavor that makes me appreciate both entities anew.

They'll come in four flavors (left to right)--Traditional Bratwurst, Heirloom Italian Brat, Spicy Espresso Brat, and Greek Feta Brat. Each is infused with Dogfish Head beer. (Click Image To Enlarge)

I’m not at a pretentious gastropub paying through the nose for a prix fixe food and beer pairing. I’m on my back porch, grilling up a new line of sausages by Dogfish Head and Coleman Natural Foods (Perdue’s natural food line), sipping on Dogfish Head’s Burton Baton IPA. The bratwurst has a flavor profile designed specifically to be paired with this beer, the result of Coleman’s food scientists teaming up with Dogfish Head brewmasters for months of taste testing and iteration.

But what makes them particularly interesting is that each of these sausages have been designed specifically to pair with certain Dogfish Head beers. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The result is that, starting today, select gourmet stores in the Northeast will carry Dogfish Head–branded sausages, including flavors like Spicy Espresso and Heirloom Italian, each flavored with beer reduction. As a consumer snags a pack of their, say, Greek Feta Chicken Brats (infused with actual Midas Touch beer) and flip over the pack, they’ll see two pairing suggestions: a Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale or a Burton Baton IPA. Assumably, that customer might go snag a six-pack to match then, too.

So their Spicy Espresso Brats are made with espresso powder, minced habanero and cumin, along with a bit of Chicory Stout. But you then are meant to pair that with a Dogifsh Head India Brown Ale or Sixty-One (an IPA with syrah grape must). (Click Image To Enlarge)

“This is going to be huge,” I think as I reach for another sausage that I follow up with Dogish Head’s Sixty-One, an IPA mixed with syrah grape must. It's rare I've felt so gleefully pretentious in my own home.

In my own taste test, I found the pairings both delicious and fascinating in a really fun, academic way. (Click Image To Enlarge)

A BEER BUBBLE?

The truth is, America's renaissance of craft beer is driving an increasingly crowded market. When Dogfish Head launched in 1995, there were 600 craft breweries in the U.S., and maybe a couple opened every week. Today, there are 2,500 craft breweries around the country (the most since the 1880s), and two more open every day.  Yet for all the new breweries, craft beer can only claim 6.5% of the $99 billion US beer market.

Even beers I wouldn't consider myself a fan of--like Midas Touch, which is considered somewhere between wine and mead--was particularly tasty as it bounced off the flavors of the Greek Feta's dairy kick. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Dogfish Head founder and president Sam Calagione admits.

“I don’t think, mathematically, that the current pace is viable for years to come.  There’s going to be some inevitable shakeout and economic darwinism. Some of these entries won’t make it.”

Now Calagione is quick to point out that he doesn’t actually view his fellow craft brewers as competition--that designation belongs to wine, spirits, and the “craft” brewers that are actually owned by international corporations. Besides, he explains, beer drinkers of today aren’t like our fathers were. We don’t decide Schlitz is our go-to beer and drink it every day for eternity. We’re promiscuous. We want to have a “whole quiver” of different craft beers in our fridge. 

Dogfish Head is also collaborating on a line of pickles... (Click Image To Enlarge)

Even still, Calagione clearly recognizes the value of diversification in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and food is a natural complement of beer. (It’s why Sierra Nevada makes a mustard and Stone has a licensing deal to make hot sauce.) But there hasn’t been a brewery that’s committed to a full lineup of foods, which Dogfish Head saw as a huge, missed opportunity.

Calagione explains.

“Everyone doesn’t eat out at a restaurant every night, and if you’re driving you can’t have too many beers at a restaurant.  How do we bring that artisanal-beer dinner concept into the home?”

...and chowder. (Click Image To Enlarge)

SUPERMARKET PRIX FIXE

Food pairings at the supermarket level are by no means a new idea. Companies like Kraft leverage the collective strength of their 55 or so power brands at the supermarket, mixing Oscar Mayer deli meats and Capri Sun juice drinks in the same Lunchables box.

But we haven’t really seen this approach applied to higher-end goods to re-create the fine-dining restaurant experience. Dogfish Head wanted to create a complete meal of what they’re calling “beer-centric foods.” So they teamed with Brooklyn Brine to make "hop pickles," and Sea Watch to make chowder (both are on sale now). But the pièce de résistance of the lineup would be a main course protein. Pairing beer and sausages was just a natural fit. Coleman and Dogfish Head struck up a deal to collaborate on a release.

With all of these "beer-centric foods" in place, Dogfish Head would like to be able to sell you a whole gastropub-level food and beer pairing to experience at home. And I think they're on to something. But may I be so bold as to make one suggestion? Variety packs. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Coleman's Brand Director Jody Hallman explains.

“It started with, we’ll take one bottle of Raison D'Etre and put it into a small, 40-pound batch of meat, mix, and see how it goes.”  

From there, a one-year process of R&D followed, in which Coleman and Dogfish Head went from 15 ideas for sausages to 10 mixed and tested sausages, to 5 flavors that would eventually make the cut.

For the Coleman team, mixing beer into recipes was a new challenge. But on top of that, pairing those tastes with another beer brought in a whole other slew of considerations. Because Dogfish Head didn’t want to simply match the taste of a pilsner in a sausage with the same pilsner you were sipping on; they wanted to enhance the complexity of the experience.

Calagione explains.

“There’s exponentially more flavors when you have one beer in the sausage but have a different beer from our portfolio to pair it with.”

(That might sound silly, but he’s absolutely right. I found my home taste-test to be academically fascinating.)

That involved several iterative taste tests with both teams. Were the sausages good on their own? Were they good with beer? Which beers were they best with? Then the sausages were offered at Dogfish Head’s own brewery--and eventually, food truck--where eager customers actually paid to serve as a test market. (It’s the same model the brewery uses to test new beers before taking them nationwide.)

A FAMILY RECIPE

The approach to one sausage was proving particularly tricky: the Italian. While the flavor was always in the running, formulating an Italian sausage for the mass market palate is actually more difficult than one might expect.

Hallman explains. 

“You think Italian is going to be a pretty simplistic flavor profile, but it can be pretty complex because everyone's perception of what it should be differs dramatically,”

The solution proposed by Calagione was to try his Sicilian grandma’s family recipe, who’d actually sold sausages out of a storefront while his grandpa made bootleg wine in the basement (a jug would go to the best sausage customers). The story was too good for Coleman to resist.

Hallman laughs.

“We cut our first samples of that, and me and our lead of R&D were like, OK, we’re going to try this, what if it doesn’t taste good?  You get kind of nervous. It could taste great, and that’d be ideal! But the whole time it was like, what if it doesn’t?”

Coleman admits to making some recipe adjustments for commercialization purposes--like saucing a whole hog--but the recipe made it through relatively unfettered. It’s quite spicy for a supermarket product, with a kick of oregano and a strong pepperoni finish.

Hallman confesses.

“You can make the same pork brat for a while, and it kind of feels a little mundane.  This project stepped into our culture and really shook it up.”

TASTES LIKE A TREND

At this point in my tasting, I’m juggling four sausages and three beers while carefully referencing a neatly printed cheat sheet. A bite here. A swig there. But as sensitively as I try to taste, my palate is now shot. The yeast, hops, pork, and seasonings have blended into a cacophony of flavors my mind has grown too tired (or maybe too fuzzy?) to distinguish.

And I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun eating anything that came in shrinkwrap.

Dogfish Head hasn’t just licensed a line of sausages with their logo on it. They’ve found a way to translate a very particular fine-dining experience into processed food. It’s why, even if any old beer and brat will taste fantastic together, Dogfish Head’s will offer something unique.

That is, until every food and beverage company in existence copies the idea. And if they have any sense, they will.

COMMENTARY:    Boy, don't those sausages look good?  And, I bet they taste and smell just as good.   I think Dogfish Head's strategy of partnering with Coleman to increase sales of their brand sausages, pickles and chowder is a great way to increase sales of both products, and will certainly help coleman sell more BBQ grills, lighter fluid and accessories.  This type of marketing strategy is often referred to as a complimentary products strategy.

If you sell gourmet muffins, you have a likely market for gourmet coffee.

That's the concept behind complementary products.  They do exactly that - they complement each other. One might enhance the other as the case might be with wine and cheese, or eyeshadow and mascara.

Products might complement each other from a standpoint of necessity. One example is a computer and a monitor; another would be a vacuum cleaner and vacuum bags.

A customer who has already bought from you is more likely to buy from you again. A customer is also more likely to buy a product that complements one they've just bought.

Selling a pair, or a combination, of complementary products is another smart marketing option. It's easier for the customer to buy from only one vendor and make a single purchase. Offering a discount for this bundle of products can further increase your changes of making the sale.

We all know about bundling. It's become an art form for the communications industry. Customers buy their long distance, cell phone, cable, and internet from a company in exchange for paying less than they would for the individual products and services.

It can make sense to give away a complementary service. Printers sometimes offer free layout and design services for large printing jobs. It can also be an incentive for establishing repeat business.

One key to successfully promoting complementary product pairings or packages is to break it down in dollars and cents.

Tell the customer how much they're saving in cold, hard cash. That's usually more effective than expressing it as a percentage discount.

Establish immediacy. Offer your customer a discount on a complementary product if they make the purchase within a certain time period.

Informational products make great choices to give away as complementary items.

If you're a representative for health and beauty products, offer your customers a free booklet full of makeup tips and tricks. Include your contact info, including website URL, throughout the booklet along with coupons. And don't forget coupon codes for online purchases.

You can take advantage of customers' purchases of complementary products even if you don't offer them yourself. Establish an alliance, or multiple ones, with those who do offer them.

If you're a caterer, establish marketing alliances with photographers, florists, and musicians.

If you specialize in pet photography, your market is one that pampers their pets. Logical complementary products and services would include pet grooming, doggie spas, and clothing for pets.

So, who are your customers? And what else do they want to buy that you aren't selling?

Courtesy of an article dated September 12, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

HOW TACO BELL INNOVATED TO RE-INVENT THE TACO BY PARTNERING WITH FRITO-LAY'S DORITOS TO CREATE THE DORITOS LOCOS TACO

FROM HANDSHAKE DEALS TO EXPERIMENTS AT HOME DEPOT, THE HISTORY OF TACO BELL'S DISRUPTIVE FAUX CHEESE-DUSTED TACO.

In early 2009, three years prior to Taco Bell's 50th anniversary, CEO Greg Creed was already experiencing something of a midlife crisis.  I said:

"Our target audience is [customers] in their 20s. Turning 50 makes us sound old, and I didn't want to sound old."

Creed explains.

" 'When we have our birthday, I don't want a cake or a celebration.'"

So he issued a bold directive to his team instead: "I said, '[let's] reinvent the crunchy taco,'" Creed recalls.

Taco Bell brand marketing director Stephanie Purdue, who helped Creed write the original team brief said.

"He was really looking for a big innovation to coincide with our anniversary."

Creed explains:

"If you look at all the buns the burger boys sell, and the bread at Subway, they are forever coming up with a new bread bun. The crunchy taco: It was yellow and made of corn. We sold a couple billion of them, but there had been no innovation."

He gave his staff until March 2012--slightly under three years--to pull off a complete rethink of traditional Mexican cuisine.

 

The team soon assembled for an all-day ideation session at Taco Bell headquarters, where 30 different product concepts were considered, Purdue says, including new forms of burritos, nachos, and taquitos. But one idea, from Doritos-maker Frito-Lay, stuck out: a Doritos-based taco shell pocketed with Taco Bell ingredients.  Purdue says.

"It was basically an image [of this taco] on a piece of paper, with a written description. I don't know what technology they use. We didn't even taste it; it was just more of, 'Hey, this is what it could look like.'  It was like, 'Holy crap!'  Nobody had ever done this before: turning a Dorito into a taco shell. It was just mind-blowing at the idea stage."

Steve Gomez, Taco Bell's food innovation expert, recalls seeing the first mock-up.  He says.

"Every day I see a lot of concepts--sketches on paper, written words about products--and my job is to turn those products into reality.  But in all my years as a product developer, I've never seen a concept like this. The product didn't even exist yet, and already people knew this idea was going to be huge."

Click Image To Enlarge

Like any serious renovation, Taco Bell's started with a trip to Home Depot. It was April 2009. To show executives how the companies could fuse the flavor of Doritos with taco shells.  Creed recalls, with a chuckle.

"The dev teams basically went out to Home Depot to buy a paint-spray gun, and then sprayed [Doritos] flavoring onto our existing yellow corn tacos.  It was pretty funny watching people from behind glass spraying our tacos with a paint gun. But it was enough for us to know conceptually that we had a big idea."

Creed jokes now that,

"Really smart people got together with a spray gun and the rest is history."

Click Image To Enlarge

But that glosses over the true story behind the Doritos Locos Taco, as it came to be known. After the company completed a round of concept testing with 200 consumers, which indicated stellar demand for the Doritos Locos Taco, Gomez's team created an edible version using Taco Bell's yellow corn shell and Doritos' Nacho Cheese seasoning.  Gomez recalls.  

"The way you might put powder sugar on cookies, that's basically the way we applied this seasoning [to our tacos]." 

At last, consumers got a taste. But after all the concept drawings and testing, trips to Home Depot, and prototype development, initial consumer taste tests flopped, to the disappointment of the team.  Purdue says.  

"They completely called us out."

Gomez recalls feeling crushed.  He says.  

"It was total buzzkill in the room."

¿Por Qué?

Even though the first tests failed to impress sample consumers, Taco Bell had forged the foundation for its biggest innovation in decades: the Doritos Locos Taco--either a revolutionary product or a low point for fast food, depending on your perspective. But there's no debating the success of the DLT, as it's called internally. Since it launched in early 2012, Taco Bell has sold more than 450 million Doritos Locos Tacos. A Cool Ranch follow-up, introduced in March, has already sold millions of units.  Creed says.  

"We had to hire about 15,000 people last year--two to three per restaurant--in order to handle the sales growth and demand of the Doritos Locos Tacos business."

Taco Bell is now planning to roll out more Doritos-flavored products, and Frito-Lay has even announced that it will offer Taco Bell-flavored Doritos.

Click Image To Enlarge

The real tale of how the DLT emerged from disappointing tests to become a massive hit involves a range of challenges and innovations, especially in engineering and manufacturing.  Creed says.

"We knew this was a breakthrough idea, so we put on our relentless hats and were determined to not let [this thing] beat us."

For the first group of testers, the problem was the taste. The combination of Doritos with Taco Bell's shells didn't capture either the zest of Doritos chips or the punch of Taco Bell's tacos. Rather, they formed a displeasing amalgamation of the two flavor profiles.  Gomez says. 

"This idea of merging a chip and a shell together--it sounds simple, but it's very hard to make a reality.  To tackle this huge challenge, for months we shared know-how between the technical teams at Frito-Lay and Taco Bell."

Click Image To Enlarge

Think Outside The Bun

The central issue was that Taco Bell's shells used a different type of corn masa than Doritos chips. But it wasn't simply a matter of adjusting the recipe. In order to create the DLT, the teams had to consider everything from seasoning mechanics to the taco's structural integrity throughout 2010 and 2011. Creed says.

"Frito-Lay wanted what's called a 'teeth-rattling crunch,' so they wanted it to snap and crunch more than the current Taco Bell shell snaps and crunches.  So we had to get that formula changed, then we had to find a way to deliver the flavoring, and then the seasoning. I mean, it was actually important that we left the orange dusting on your fingers because otherwise, we're not delivering the genuine Doritos [experience]."

All in, the teams experimented with more than 40 recipes over two years. During that time, the teams faced several roadblocks.  Creed says.  

"Remember, a taco shell has to bend, so we had to make this crispy [like a chip], but we also had to make it be able to bend so it didn't crack.  This was a really big engineering challenge, [especially considering] we would have to make hundreds of millions of these shells."

Click Image To Enlarge

Gomez says.

"When you buy a bag of Doritos and you open it, and some of the corners are broken off, you're probably not going to be that mad, because they're still Doritos.  But if our taco shells are broken in transit or in the restaurants, we can't do anything with them.  That was a big obstacle for us. How do we make these shells chip-like, but also be able to ship them and still be able to build a taco without having them break? There were some [prototypes] where we would barely even touch them and the shell would break."

Seasoning was another major issue, which was as much of a challenge of taste as it was for manufacturing.  Creed recalls.  

"A Doritos chip is a flat triangle, and it gets seasoned by being tumbled around in a huge seasoner barrel that rotates. But we couldn't do that with a taco shell because they would break. We could get the seasoning to stick to the top but we couldn't get it to stick to the bottom--we just couldn't get it evenly coated.  You don't want to take one big bite at one end, and it has flavor and the other end has nothing. We had to make sure it was evenly distributed."

Gomez says.

"That was the really tricky part.  Just like anything in manufacturing, it's all about speed and efficiency. So our seasoner had to season shells fast and it had to season them right every single time. We had teams of engineers working day and night to get the seasoner working."

In fact, the companies ended up creating a proprietary seasoner in the process, not least because for workers on the manufacturing line, the plumes of Doritos seasoning would create an almost Nacho Cheese gas chamber.   Creed says.  

"We realized pretty quickly that we had to seal that all in, because in the facilities, we couldn't have all that stuff in the air.  It would've been too much seasoning and flavor for our workers. We had to enclose it so the seasoning wouldn't escape. It would've been overpowering."

[Eds. note: Not a bad way to go.]

Click Image To Enlarge

Gomez admits to losing faith at times.  He says.  

"There was a tremendous amount of pressure. There were days when we would get bummed out and worried that this would be too hard to pull off."

But eventually his team refined and narrowed down the recipes to three prototypes, which were readied for market testing. Creed says.  

"There's a little bit of black box magic that went into the final prototype of the DLT, which not many people have seen."

He won't elaborate, but regardless of the secret recipe, the true beauty of the DLT is its deceptively basic concept.

Creed says.

"It's really one of those breathtakingly simple but huge ideas.  I remember trying to sell guacamole in the Midwest and people were like, 'What's all this green stuff in my burrito?' But this was a fastball, down the middle. It's what you'd expect from Taco Bell, but supercharged."

Click Image To Enlarge

I Would Walk 900 Miles

By September 2011, Taco Bell had rolled out the DLT prototype at a handful of restaurants in a few cities around the country for testing. Soon, hype around the DLT spread like lukewarm baja sauce. Customers began blogging about their experience; a slew of video reviews hit YouTube; and one Taco Bell addict even drove 900 miles from New York to Toledo, OH for an early taste of the DLT. Stephanie Purdue says. 

"They were just fanatical, and the results were off the charts. I've never seen so much word of mouth generated for one single product."

But while buzz for the DLT's national launch was locked in, a deal between Taco Bell and Frito-Lay was not. As Taco Bell legend has it, though the companies had spent years working together on the DLT, no official contracts had ever been signed. Taco Bell's 50th birthday was fast approaching when Greg Creed and then-Frito-Lay CEO Al Carey met in Creed's office to hash out final details.  Creed recalls.  

"We both realized that if we let the lawyers get involved, this thing would get slowed down and bogged down. So we did a handshake deal--that's all we had: You're going to spend the money, and I'm going to spend the money [on the DLT].  Everyone was like, 'You can't launch without a contract.' And we were like, 'Just watch us.'"

Legal wrangling aside, meeting demand for the DLT was another problem for Taco Bell. Purdue says. 

"We were going from three cities to 6,000 restaurants.  We didn't have the manufacturing capacity."

Adds Gomez.

"How do we stockpile millions of shells to be ready for a launch of this magnitude?"

Initially, the company thought its suppliers could build two dedicated DLT lines to produce enough shells to meet demand.  Creed says.  

"We built a pilot plant, but then we sold so many that we were like, 'Whoops, we got a problem.'"

Taco Bell's suppliers ended up building six dedicated manufacturing lines for the DLT, which are handled by roughly 600 employees. In fact, the Cool Ranch version of the DLT was originally supposed to launch late last year, instead of in March 2013, but it was delayed to add more manufacturing lines.  Creed says.  

"We realized we needed more capacity, because we couldn't slow down the Nacho Cheese line in order to create capacity for Cool Ranch."

When the DLT went nationwide, it was a smash hit, with millions of tacos sold in the first week on the market alone.  Morgan Stanley analyst John Glass explains. 

"When it launched, there was a significant impact--Taco Bell's [sales] numbers were up 13% in the second quarter of last year, which is big.  Brands like Taco Bell or McDonald's or Wendy's--you just don't see double-digit [growth] in same-store sales."

Soon, a contract was written up between Taco Bell and Frito-Lay, according to Creed.

Creed recalls.  

"When we met in my office [before launch], we said that if either one of us gets sacked or promoted, we would actually have to write a contract.  When [then-Frito-Lay CEO] Al [Carey] got promoted to run the PepsiCo beverage business, I phoned him up and said, 'So I guess we better write that contract then.' Well guess what? We sold 100 million tacos in the first 70 days. If we waited for those contracts to be finished, we would've sold 100 million less."

Flamas Future

After Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch, a spicy Doritos Flamas-flavored taco is next on the docket. But that's not all the company has in the works.  Creed says.  

"Someone said to me, 'Well, when you launch three or four of these things you'll run out of ideas.'  I'm like, 'Not really.'"

To Creed, the partnership between Taco Bell and Frito-Lay is more than a one-off collaboration. Like Android is to Google or iOS is to Apple, Doritos-based flavors represent a whole new framework for Taco Bell to build on.  Creed beams.  

"It's not just a product; it's now a platform--Nacho Cheese, Cool Ranch, Flamas.  We're going to blow everyone away in the next few years in terms of how big this idea and platform will become."

The company is now considering crowdsourcing the next iteration of the DLT, and with 123 flavors of Doritos, there's certainly no shortage of possibilities. But perhaps more compelling than the company's innovations in taco shells are its plans to rethink what goes inside the DLT. Creed gives Fast Company the scoop:  

"At the moment, all the ingredients we have inside these shells are the same. The shells keep changing, but the ingredients are still ground beef, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes.  Well, we got a load of other flavors at Taco Bell, and we could put a whole lot of different ingredients inside those shells that would create a different taste and sensation."

When pressed, Creed would only say it could be different "proteins or a special sauce." Additionally, customers themselves are already experimenting with their own reinventions of the DLT.  Creed says.  

"The Cheesy Gordita Crunch people are asking us to make one with either a Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch shell."

That's likely to come down the road.

John Glass, the Morgan Stanley analyst, imagines there are more Doritos-based products on the horizon, but questions whether they will be as successful as the first Doritos Locos Taco.  He says.

"I don't know how many variants there will be, but I think it's the type of platform that could come back year after year.  It doesn't just have to be a taco. There's already a burrito with Fritos in it. Could you do Doritos nachos? A Doritos taco salad? Maybe. Creative guys will come up with different ways to use the same idea in ways we hadn't thought of before."

However complex the DLT line eventually becomes, the innovation behind the idea is its elegant simplicity, according to Creed. The combination of Doritos and Taco Bell, he says, is just so universally appealing that it's feeding its success in the market and driving its place in pop culture.

 Creed explains. 

"It's like sliced bread.  If you like bread, why wouldn't you want it sliced?"

COMMENTARY:   The Taco Bell Doritos Locos Taco -- the gift that keeps on giving.  A very captivating story of how the DLT was created from ideation to finished prototype and how it was promoted during the launch.  Anytime you can have that kind of success without a hitch, you are on to something.  I think you can definitely say that the folks at Taco Bell are definitely "thinking outside the bun."

Courtesy of an article dated May 1, 2013 appearing in Fast Company

THE "PICTURE BOOK": AN INGENIOUS COOKBOOK THAT USES INFOGRAPHICS INSTEAD OF RECIPE INGREDIENT WORDS

EVER GET LOST IN A COOKBOOK’S LONG NARRATIVE OF INSTRUCTIONS? US TOO. ONE ILLUSTRATOR BOILED 50 RECIPES DOWN TO SIMPLE SKETCHES.

How do you make lasagna? Even though it’s not that complex of a dish, to spell out the methodology--the specific ingredients and the many small, easy steps of prep work--it would take me half a page of type or more.

But for designer/illustrator Katie Shelly, writer of Picture Cook: See. Make. Eat., the recipe for lasagna looks a lot different. It’s a simple sketch that deconstructs lasagna into its discrete components. So with a glance, anyone can learn how to layer cheese, noodles, sauce and meat to make the dish.

Click Image To Enlarge

Of course, illustration isn’t a new idea in cookbooks--drawings that show finder details of technique like dicing onions are mainstays in classic food tomes. Where Shelly’s illustrations become radical is their scope. Using a bare minimum of text, she depicts everything from a quickly blended Gazpacho to a 2-hour, 21-ingredient pho. The somewhat oddball idea came to Shelly when writing down a friend’s eggplant parmesan recipe over the phone.

Shelly tells Co.Design. 

“She started by saying ‘well first you get out three bowls …’ and so it was natural to just draw the three bowls in that moment, and then I stuck with drawing the rest of the recipe on this little scrap of paper.  That night when I got down to cooking, I pulled out the drawing of the recipe and found that it was really useable, more useable than a text recipe where you have to stop what you’re doing and read and re-read the steps.”

Click Image To Enlarge

From there, she pushed the idea further, drawing on a background in UX testing to create recipes and spot where her testers (friends) may may potentially go wrong. This honed her craft, so much so that you’ll probably be a little impressed by her subtle uses of iconography (like the number of flames below a pot slyly depicting relative temperature), but you’ll be downright shocked at her ability to make even the most involved from-scratch cooking look fun and approachable.

Shelly writes. 

“One of my goals for this book is to encourage people to just let go of rigid kitchen rules and be loose and free about cooking. The charm of the illustrations is great for its own sake, but it’s also performing a real function in helping make cooking feel easy, lighthearted, and do-able.  So what if you mess up? Once things get too serious, the drawings stop being inviting and start seeming intimidating. Like how people feel so oppressed by Ikea diagrams.”

Picture Cook won’t be released until October. But you can preorder it today for all of $11 on Amazon.

COMMENTARY:   I think this new cookbook is going to be very popular with cooking purists, and individuals who are learning how to cook.  I'm in.  For those of you interested in buying the new Picture Cook book, you can buy it at Amazon.com by clicking HERE.

Courtesy of an article dated April 30, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

THE PIAMO ESPRESSO MAKER, AN INGENIOUS AT-HOME ESPRESSO MAKER FOR YOUR MICROWAVE IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE

The Piamo is a charming, microwave espresso maker (Click Image To Enlarge)

HAS THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENED? HAS SOMEONE BUILT THE FIRST AMAZING MICROWAVE ESPRESSO MAKER? POSSIBLY.

Brewing world-class coffee is fairly inexpensive. All you need is a grinder and a kettle and some sort of combination of a funnel and filter. Good espresso ups the ante by about tenfold. You need pressure. Pressure is expensive, it’s counter-suckingly bulky and still requires a level of finesse to pull a perfect shot. Since the 1930s, the solution has been the moka pot, but a moka pot needs a stove.

In 30 seconds, it will turn your water and grounds into a very strong shot of coffee (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Piamo Espresso Maker, designed by Christoph and Hendrik Meyl, along with Lunar, is an elegant, microwaveable entry in the world of at-home espresso. It’s essentially a microwaveable moka pot, inverted. You pour water in a reservoir up top and fill grounds in the middle. Then you set the microwave for 30 seconds. Steam pressure builds in the reservoir, pushing water through the grounds into a cup. You’re done.

 

Lunar’s lead project designer Roman Gebhard told Co.Design.

“We really strived for creating a simple, on-the-go espresso experience that is communicated with a clear, unique, and iconic design expression.  There was a need and opportunity to form a brand new product icon/archetype that has the strength to become a symbol for this category.”

The Piamo has already been awarded a few patents based on its ingenuity, but its most brilliant move was to play off the already-iconic shape (and mouth feel) of the espresso cup. Because while I was able to find some “microwaveable espresso makers” on Amazon, their plastic construction oozed gimmick. And all their parts looked fragile and tough to clean. Even though I’ve never tasted Piamo espresso, I’m inherently drawn to the authenticity of that espresso cup. I trust it, and I want to drink espresso out of it.

The top (left) is the water reservoir. Then you have the compartment for the grounds--complete with metal shielding to stop them from burning. At the bottom is the cup (Click Image To Enlarge)

Of course, the larger design challenges had nothing to do with the branding. The team had to figure out, how do you toss ground espresso into a microwave for 30 seconds without burning away the intoxicating aroma? The solution was to implement metal shielding around just the grounds compartment of the Piamo. But don’t metal and microwaves not mix?

Steam pressure builds, pushing through the middle chamber’s grounds into the cup itself (Click Image To Enlarge)

Gebhard explains. 

"Any metal part in a microwave acts as an antenna. It needs to be designed in a way that its geometry is soft, rounded, and doesn’t have any pointy, sharp areas that create problems with the electrical fields that would result in the well-known sparks.  Furthermore, these metal parts need to be designed in a way that they are aligned with the standardized microwave wavelength and frequency."

Coupled with that espresso cup, which was actually built of ABS plastic to reinforce the metal’s shielding (better than ceramic would), the espresso grounds are kept safe from overheating. Ironically, moka pots are often chided for burning espresso before the water pressure mixes with the beans. Piamo’s design team may have solved this age-old problem despite the indiscriminate science of microwaves.

And it only takes 30 seconds (Click Image To Enlarge)

But before the snobs call me on this, it is worth noting that moka pots may not be the ultimate standard of espresso. Coffee consensus agrees that you need 8.8 bars (atmospheres) of pressure to pull an ideal shot. Moka pots, and the Piamo, both generate about 1.5 bars. So will the Piamo prove to be a replacement for your four-figure counter beast, brandishing a name that could be mistaken for an Italian sports car? Probably not. But could the Piamo be the all-around most convenient way ever to make a drinkable shot of super strong coffee at the inlaws’? Absolutely.

The Piamo is available for pre-order now. It’s $55 on the German equivalent of Kickstarter.

Order the Piamo Espresso Maker here 

COMMENTARY:   I'm not an espresso coffee drinker, but the Piamo Espresso Maker definitely appears to be a very simple alternative solution to what has become a complicated and fairly expensive solution to brewing a great cup of espresso coffee.  It's sort of a no-brainer if you want a quick cup of espresso coffee, and don't want to use one of those espresso machines.   

Courtesy of an article dated February 6, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design 

 

HOW MOMENTUM MACHINES PLANS TO DISRUPT THE FAST FOOD INDUSTRY WITH A ROBOTIC BURGER MAKING MACHINE

Momentum Machines, a startup out of Lemnos Labs, plans to automate the fast food industry, starting with the perfect burger.

Science fiction has always positioned the idea that one day our human jobs would be replaced by machines. For those working in burger assembly lines, that day might be sooner than you think.

Momentum Machines' robotic burger making machine technology (Click Image To Enlarge)

Introducing a machine that makes burgers. Literally, it’s a burger making machine, in prototype, that takes unprepared ingredients like whole tomatoes, onions, uncooked patties, untoasted buns, and spits out a completely assembled burger:

Momentum Machines, the San Francisco-based robotics company responsible for the concept, notes that they are aiming to have a functional demo model by June 1st, 2012.

Momentum Machines robotic hamburger making machine prototype goes through testing (Click Image To Enlarge)

About a month ago, the company got a quick nod by the tech community and a shaky video by StartupGrind that caught the group during a work day. Jump to 2:38 for the interesting stuff, see company president Alex Vardakostas speak, joke about their CAD model and give a brief explanation about the power of their product.

How does it work?

The machine takes unprepared inputs (including whole tomatoes, onions, pickles, uncooked patties, untoasted buns, etc.) and then, as each order comes in, the device prepares the ingredients (slices tomatoes, char-broils patties, etc.) and assembles the entire burger.

Momentum Machines robotic burger has feeding tubes that automatically add lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles to their hamburgers (Click Image To Enlarge)

Customization occurs through a simple user interface, allowing the button-pusher to opt out of certain ingredients and add extras of stuff they like. When it’s done doing the assembling, it even puts the burger into a bag, if that’s what your company needs it to do.

Momentum Machines robotic burger is equipped for containers that automatically add mayonnaise, mustard and catsup to each hamburger (Click Image To Enlarge)

Vardakostas even commented on the possible additions of proteins outside of beef patties. He said they plan on integrating chicken sandwiches and fish sandwiches into the technology, and that their current setup isn’t too far off from handling such requests.

Momentum Machines robotic burger machine convenyor belt (Click Image To Enlarge) 

When asked about the limitations of his machine, Vardakostas said. 

“The machine is already capable of handling different sizes of buns, tomatoes, et cetera.  It’s also really customizable in that the restaurant owner can tell us the proportion sizes desired of each ingredient and we can very easily modify the machine to suit their demand.”

Daily upkeep for potential restaurant users involves reloading the machine with ingredients “every once in a long while.”

The finished robo-burger as it comes off of Momentum Machines' robotic hamburger maker (Click Image To Enlarge)

The anticipated output is currently around 360 hamburgers per hour.

The aim of the robot, which remains without a name currently, is to produce food more consistently, with higher quality and at a lower cost.

Ultimately, a sterile machine opens the opportunity for a much more sanitary work environment. For those that think burger making robots sound superfluous, let the ramifications sink in.

Vardakostas notes that their potential customers include “hamburger restaurants of all kinds, food trucks, airports, train stations and other high traffic locations.”

Momentum Machines management team (left-to-right) is Jack McDonald, Alex Vardostas, Steven Frehn and Ari Atkins (Click Image To Enlarge)

Most exciting, as Alex put it, is all the new restaurant concepts that could be unleashed with their technology as the backend.

The utility for a restaurant owner is evident, less people on the line with more output. If Momentum Machines does their due diligence, it may even be beneficial to make available an adaptable API — opening the floodgates to unique visual ordering experiences.

COMMENTARY:   Vardakostas grew up with firsthand exposure to the labor that goes into the burger-making process—his father owns a mini-chain of burger joints in Southern California. He turned his childhood experience into the idea for a company. Vardakostas said.  

"I thought, 'What's the one tool a restaurant could have to destroy its competition'"  

He estimates that their invention will save the standard quick-service restaurant $135,000 a year in wages, and build a more consistent product.

However, rather than making plans to peddle their apparatus to existing fast food restaurants, Vardakostas and his friends seem more interested in starting a restaurant of their own. Vardakostas says.

"Fast food sucks, and we want to change all that."

They envision a restaurant with a menu similar to that of a Five Guys or In-N-Out, but without the vast, stainless steel kitchen full of cooking equipment and scrambling employees. All the food prep will be done by machines, with human staff working the register and delivering the food. Vardakostas said.  

"Maybe we'll have the cashier behind a podium with just a garden or vines on the wall behind them."

He explained the company's vision for how their machine-powered restaurant would be a serene landscape compared to the typical fast food environment.

I like the idea of a robotic hamburger making machine, but Momentum Machines must test their system thoroughly in order to insure that the finished hamburgers meet their high premium quality standards, the equipment can keep up with orders, and can produce burgers without mechanical breakdowns.  They must also have a backup system in place to insure that they can produce those burgers in the event of machinery failure.  Those finished hamburgers sure look good and tasty looking, but I believe that they are at least a year before they launch their first fully-automated hamburger operation.

Having your own hamburger restaurant is a great way to take the robotic hamburger making system through its paces, fix any mechanical issues and insure that the burgers produced meet its high premium quality standards.  It will also serve as a test bed that they can use to prove the effectiveness and reliability of the system should they decide to franchise their restaurants or license the technology to end-users.  

Courtesy of an article dated December 19, 2012 appearing in Robotic Trends and an article dated October 11, 2012 appearing in Serious Eats!