A variety of significant and unprecedented trends are taking place on the food landscape that should have an impact on what types of food airport restaurateurs should offer, how they should develop their menus and what price points will draw customers into their restaurants. From a continuing recession to the aging boomer populace to the powerful Generation Y consumer to an explosion in health conscious eaters, airport concessionaires will be challenged to respond and adapt in 2009.
ARN talked to two renowned food experts who discuss highly significant trends that all restaurateurs need to incorporate into their menu and marketing strategies to meet the demands of hungry patrons and succeed in a difficult economic climate.
Dr. A. Elizabeth Sloan is the president of Sloan Trends, Inc., a consulting firm specialized in trend-tracking and predictions, strategic counsel and business-building ideas for food, supplement and food service/restaurant marketers. She is also the consumer and product trends columnist for Food Technology magazine and trends editor for Flavor & The Menu magazine.
She holds a Ph.D. in food science and nutrition with a minor in mass communications from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelors Degree in food technology from Rutgers University.
Darren Tristano is executive vice president of Technomic, a consulting firm which uses its proprietary research, trend analysis, forecasts, common-interest studies and industry reports to help food businesses develop marketing plans.
Since 1993, Tristano has been charged with the development and management of Technomic’s Information Services division, where he also serves as a restaurant industry analyst and subject matter expert specializing in major national restaurant chain concept and menu development, and smaller emerging regional chains. His business unit develops many “industry standard” intelligence sources, including the Digital Resource Library, MenuMonitor, PriceMonitor and Technomic’s Top 500 Leading Chain Restaurant report.
Read the rest of this article in the upcoming July issue of Airport Revenue News.
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