One More Time

“When you are through changing, you’re through.” – Bruce Barton, advertiser and creator of Betty Crocker.

If I promise not to write about raising your menu prices again next time, will you please bear with me for one more column about raising your prices while offering your customers a value proposition in exchange for the increased price?

I stumbled across the results of a survey conducted by RBC Capital Markets that said that “food quality far outpaced price and convenience as the most-cited driver of restaurant choice, 55% to 12%.” I also came across two other studies’ results that said that “by 2010, natural and organic food sales are expected to increase by 63%,” and that “41.7% of the 25,446 new food products introduced since mid 2004
have [sic] been in the ’all natural or organic’ category.”

So what does that mean? Let’s start with the obvious, how the food tastes is the most important determinant of where diners are going to spend their money. Next, price and convenience take a back seat to quality. Finally, the organic and all natural product categories are here to stay. Combine them all together and it makes sense to upgrade your meats to All Natural or Organic selections and improve your profitability.

How does upgrading your meats make you more profitable? First of all, you are responding to the consumer trends, which will insure that more people are coming through your front door and spending money in your restaurant. Second, because you are offering your customers a perceived (and real) value by changing your meats, you can build in more profit margin for the greater value you are offering. Those two factors work together to help insure you improve your profitability.

Okay, I hear you saying “Enough already! I get the point.” So I will wrap it up there with only one last thought – “It is not a sin to be profitable.”