Part 1 of 2: Crunch Time
Matching new products to diners’ dieting demands
By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 3/15/2004
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In July 2003, Eric Arthur, vice president of operation services at Back Yard Burgers, received a phone call from a longtime customer raving about a weight-loss plan called the South Beach Diet. Intrigued, Arthur, along with Tina Anthony, research and development/quality assurance specialist for the Memphis-based quick-service chain, headed to local bookstores to investigate.
“There was not an available copy of the book to be had anywhere,” Arthur remembers.
Interest piqued, the two began their own research into the low-carbohydrate diet phenomenon, reading books and talking to customers “to see if there was a viable market for something like that,” he says. “We found there was.”
The third-pound Low Carb Burger joined Back Yard Burgers’ menu less than six months later, weighing in at 3 carb grams and wrapped in green leaf lettuce instead of a bun.
A simple solution? Not quite. The challenges research-and-development departments at Back Yard Burgers and other concepts face in meeting the growing demand for carb-friendly menu items go beyond simply swapping lettuce for loaves. Even under the tightest time constraints, R&D demands a multistage process of trial and error before achieving the desired success.
Choice of carriers
For many operators, creating lower-carb products means finding
alternatives to typical breads and buns as sandwich-filling
carriers. Arthur and Anthony considered several ways for
Back Yard Burgers to address this issue, including low-carb
tortilla
wraps and low-carb buns and breads.
The lettuce wrap “was operationally friendly, more indicative of what our customers were looking for. It was well accepted among people on those diets,” Arthur says of the final selection.
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Vancouver, Wash.-based Burgerville reached a different conclusion. Drive-thru represents about 60% of the chain’s business, so R&D Director George Brown and Director of Food Safety Debe Nagy-Nero deemed lettuce-wrapped burgers too messy and unwieldy. Instead, in January the company introduced the Protein Platter: a quarter-pound beef patty, two slices of pepper bacon, Cheddar and pepper Jack cheese slices with a side garden salad for a total 7 grams of carbohydrates.
With the help of vendors who educated him on the availability of low-carb products, Brown had identified options for low-carb buns but found their prices high and flavors lackluster. He also believed consumers wouldn’t accept bread products billed as low-carb, a philosophy not shared by Atlanta-based Blimpie Subs & Salads, where sandwiches on the chain’s Carb Counter Menu are built on bread with 2 net carb grams per slice (the nonscientific term “net carb” often refers to total carbohydrate grams minus fiber grams and, in some cases, sugar alcohol).
Bread winner
Still another option proved a fit for Milford, Conn.-based Subway, which began researching low-carb offerings after
finding high interest in the topic through an Internet
study the company
conducted in July 2003.
“We started looking at low-carb breads, different salad options, a breadless sub, and nothing was really clicking for us until finally a new type of tortilla wrap was presented to us [by a current vendor] that had terrific flavor and was also lower in carbs,” says Nick Hauptfeld, manager of new product development. On Dec. 29, the chain debuted Atkins-Friendly Wraps—each containing 11 or fewer net carbs.
The low-carb challenges
The obstacles R&D staffs face in creating low-carb products
vary by concept and approach. Smoothie King, a Kenner, La.-based
chain that adds nutritional supplements to its custom-blended
smoothies, encountered challenges during early explorations
of the opportunity. The company began researching low-carb
products as early as 1996, when The Zone diet became popular,
says Rocky Gettys, director of operations and research and
development.
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It was only over the past year that the low-carb smoothie became the company’s No. 1 R&D priority. Once the team created the right protein base for the drink, they had to look at the product from a scientific standpoint. Tests ensured that the right nutrients and fibers made the smoothie blend consistently and without becoming lumpy and icy, Gettys says. Smoothie King’s low-carb/high-protein smoothies joined the menu in November 2003, with each of four flavors featuring 4 “impact” (net) carbs.
For Subway, which closely ties its baked-on-site bread to branding efforts, Hauptfeld says the toughest part about building the Atkins-Friendly line was “having to eliminate our delicious breads and come up with something that tastes terrific.” On the other hand, he notes that the R&D team was able instead to experiment with different cheeses and bacon, ingredients they had avoided when developing low-fat offerings.
Vancouver, Wash.-based Papa Murphy’s Take ’N’ Bake Pizza also faced brand-related issues in creating its new Thin Crust deLITE, which contains less than half the carbs and almost half the calories of its standard pizzas. Since customers cook the company’s products in their home ovens on disposable baking trays, the R&D team had to create a thin crust that would cook up crisp and brown at lower temperatures than those of typical pizzeria ovens. Drawing on vendors and other sources with extensive bakery knowledge was integral to the process, says Vice President of Research and Development Doug Collins.
Stirring up the product mix
With the low-carb craze showing no signs of slowing, time
is critical for R&D departments looking to cash in. That’s
one reason chains such as Edmond, Okla.-based Garfield’s
Restaurant & Pub and Dallas-based Chili’s Grill & Bar
eschewed large-scale product additions in favor of special
menu sections calling out low-carb items already included in
their mix.
Garfield’s Low-Carb High-Flavor section features the casual chain’s signature grilled items such as steak, chicken and fish paired with new sides including steamed broccoli and mashed cauliflower.
“All we did was reprint menus and redesign the back so the new section would fit,” says Vincent Orza, chairman and CEO of parent company Eateries Inc. “It’s already paying off. The return [on investment] is definitely there.”
At Chili’s, the It’s Your Choice menu reflects the “positioning of signature items with plate presentations that lend themselves to a low-carb lifestyle.” Such items as unbreaded Buffalo wings and fajitas are meant to be eaten with knife and fork, says spokesman Louis Adams.
“Who knows where the low-carb craze will be in two years?” he says. “We have not done anything drastic or aligned ourselves with one diet organization. We’ve taken a very balanced approach.”
What counts as low-carb?
Despite widespread use of the term in marketing and on menus, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains no official measure for deeming foods “low carb.” The organization in the past has codified “low” ratings for fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and calories.
“It’s something there is a lot of consumer interest in, and we’re aware many companies are trying to fill this niche in the market. We are evaluating the need to address the low-carb issue right now,” says FDA spokesperson Sebastian Cianci.
In the meantime, the agency has issued warning letters to packaged-goods marketers that list only net carbs (total carbohydrate content must be given), leading some to alter descriptors to terms such as “carb-friendly.”
The FDA has authority over foodservice menus, and last year indicated that it is studying whether to require nutrition information on menus. The agency apparently has not issued any warnings about “low carb” descriptors to foodservice operators.
Measuring up
With nutrition information such as carbohydrate and fat content garnering more-frequent menu mentions, vigilant operators have many options when it comes to ensuring accuracy. Some companies, such as Subway and Back Yard Burgers, employ nutritionists or food scientists to make in-house calculations, while chains including Smoothie King and Blimpie contract with third-party service providers. As an extra safeguard, Blimpie employs a vendor-certification program that requires suppliers to send their own products to outside agencies to double-check nutritional analyses.
Costs need not be prohibitive. Garfield’s contracts with universities to aid its computer-based analysis, while Papa Murphy’s goes high-tech using nutrition-analysis software from the National Restaurant Association.
Special Report Part 2 of 2: The Ultimate Taste Test >>
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