The Hartman Group’s ethnographers are back from the field for the syndicated research “Diners' Changing Behaviors” with the progressive food consultancy Changing Tastes, we sat down with its founder, Arlin Wasserman, to talk about some of the big-picture interests around how consumers see sustainability and wellness, how it affects where they go out to eat – and how their preferences are affecting restaurants and other food service providers. 

We want to share some of Arlin’s insights with you, and we look forward to exploring and advancing these ideas in our syndicated study “Diners' Changing Behaviors.” 

The Hartman Group (THG): More and more restaurants, college campuses and other food service operators are changing their menus toward the types of less processed dishes that have been such a success at fresh-format restaurants. How is this shift changing food service and restaurant business models and priorities? 

Changing Tastes’ Arlin Wasserman (AW): The move toward serving fresh food is transforming business models in the food service industry and its supplier community. It was catalyzed by industry innovators who embraced the farm-to-table approach that culinary professionals introduced to the dining public a few short decades ago. Today, it is hard to think about any part of our food system that doesn’t give a nod to fresh, local and seasonal flavors and inspirations. 

On a practical level, supply chains now are leaner and more brittle as they need to provide more perishable ingredients and less frozen or shelf-stable processed products. As a result, food service companies are increasingly exposed to the same risks that farmers face: weather, water and pests. Prices for fresh foods can change as often as the weather and change minute by minute on speculation about how the harvest will turn out. Such price volatility is only increasing as climate change and water limits have a greater impact on farmers. 

Working with fresh ingredients also affects labor models, shifting more of the cooking out of the factory and into the kitchen. That increases the need for culinary talent than can execute fresh meals. It’s the same skill gap for the home cook between scratch cooking and just warming up the leftovers. 

THG: Food service and restaurant operators are experimenting with incremental changes that signal sustainability as well as local and healthy food. What are the risks, both with supply and with marketing such traits to customers who might not find them relevant? 

AW: One of the biggest risks is to invest in changes that are not central to your brand. Diners choose where to eat before they decide what to order, and the “where” is driven by the brand, including its culinary approach and iconic dishes. 

Extra costs to source a few ingredients locally or from sustainable sources or to offer one or two healthy items while leaving the most visible parts of the menu untouched may erode trust and raise questions about what else the diner is eating. Even incremental change requires new business competencies. 

There’s been some recent coverage about Eat'n Park’s effort to work with local farmers to supply fresh tomatoes and peppers over the past two growing seasons. Both years, unseasonably cool weather has meant local crops take longer to ripen. So the crop has come in too late to use as planned for its seasonal menu, while the company has still honored its commitment to buy the crop from local farmers. With nature running behind schedule, the peppers were pickled rather than used fresh when the harvest finally came in. Both incremental and substantial commitments to fresh food and local sourcing require the nimbleness and culinary talent to adapt menus and recipes to the growing season. 

THG: What aspects of sustainability, wellness or nutrition should operators be exploring that are most relevant with diners? 

AW: That’s a question we will investigate together as we research and write “Diners' Changing Behaviors.”

But at the 30,000-foot level, we know diners think about food, so operators should focus on the ingredients, recipes, menus and formats they use to offer food. Consumers’ thinking about food appears to overlap with a generalized idea about sustainability, wellness and nutrition.

We’ll explore how diners view foods that are organically grown or that come from farm to table and how that affects their decisions about where to eat – and how they reconcile those preferences in the context of food culture. As state fair season begins across the country, a deep-fried organic cupcake is probably now out there somewhere.

THG: How can food service and restaurant operators make front-of-house/back-of-house changes that are most impactful? 

AW: These are other important questions we’ll address in the new study. However, for both health and the environment, we suspect that for consumers, food narratives and ingredient choices are more important than emphasizing other aspects of operations, like packaging and disposables, equipment and fixtures. We’ll investigate diners’ priorities with regard to measures like health and the environment. 

We do know that when looking at traditional sustainability measures like greenhouse gas emissions, chemical use, waste concerns and water consumption, most occur in growing food rather than in shipping, cooking or serving it, or cleaning up afterwards. 

So, in the front of the house, clearly communicating where food comes from and why you have chosen your ingredients, suppliers or offerings provides the story and the transparency that we suspect builds a relationship with today’s dining public – but these factors will be explored more in depth by The Hartman Group and Changing Tastes. 

About Changing Tastes

Since its founding in 2003, Changing Tastes has helped clients achieve greater success by understanding and finding opportunities at the intersection of four key trends affecting the food and agriculture sector: public health, environmental sustainability, the changing role of the culinary profession, and demographics. We mobilize our expertise and our big-picture perspective to develop new strategy and support innovation that transform our clients’ approach and increase the scale of success for our clients, including Fortune 500 and FTSE 400 companies, professional and philanthropic investors and trade groups.