Creating innovative menus… Providing healthful food options… appealing to customers' appetites… making a cafeteria or dining room an engaging place to eat. These are daily challenges that face every onsite foodservice operator. And because they serve food to the same customers every day, they have a much greater impact on their customers' overall diets than a “special occasion” or once-a-week dining venue does.

For help in both areas — and in keeping menus fresh, food options healthy, appetites whetted and cafeterias fun — it is useful to tap the expertise of those who grow and make our food.

Producers, including agricultural commodity boards, can be very helpful resources for operators. Commodity boards, commissions or councils are typically established by their agricultural industry. Avocado growers, grape farmers, peanut farmers, rice growers, olive oil producers and many others exist to help maintain and expand markets for their respective products. Depending upon the organization, their activities may include research, trade and issue management, advertising, as well as education and outreach to their respective target audiences. As a noncommercial operator, you fall into this latter category.

Free Resources

So what, exactly, can a commodity board offer? First, these organizations are typically a treasure trove of customer research, trend studies, nutrition and health information, new recipes, promotion ideas, marketing materials and training programs. In some cases, commodity groups may even provide promotional dollars to help leverage promotional efforts.

Customer research

Consumer research can help provide insight into your customers and their dining habits as well as interesting facts to share with them in your own merchandising activities. For example: the California Table Grape Commission recently translated some general consumer research into actionable information for onsite foodservice operators. Cindy Plummer, vice president domestic marketing, for the Commission, explains:

“We compiled and printed the results of a pilot test we did with Stanford Dining that measured the impact of using grapes as an alternative to French fries. We looked at their use in salads and as a takeout item both in student dining and retail venues.” The report is called, “Stanford Dining Does Its Research: Fresh Grapes are Good to Go,” and is now available to any operator.

“It provides concrete data that clearly supports the use of grapes in these ways, but in the case of takeout grapes, gives specifics on which merchandising methods, in which venue, generated the highest sales,” says Plummer.

Producers understand the diversity of the onsite market and appreciate that school foodservice is not the same as a B&I environment, and that both are different from college campus dining or a healthcare setting. So they often conduct customer research to individual segments.

Here's another example: after conducting research among foodservice professionals, the USA Rice Federation designed its web site to specifically address the unique requirements that each segment has.

“Whether an operator is looking for rice recipes, trend articles, or information on how rice can best fit into an operation's menus, our site ensures the most relevant content is being delivered whether the recipient is a K-12 , healthcare, or from another segment,” says Judy Rusignuolo, director of national consumer education and foodservice marketing for the Federation.

Trend studies

Commodity boards make it their business to understand, anticipate and apply both culinary and health trends to the use of their products so that they can offer relevant information and tools to operators. A commodity board may work with an array of experts to achieve this knowledge, including renowned chefs and culinary schools, cookbook authors, journalists, scientific researchers and health professionals such as dietitians and doctors. They also stay updated on the ever-changing and competitive environments that operators face and seek to provide menu solutions that truly make sense given such challenges.

For example, the environmental issue of sustainability is increasingly being addressed by producers. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) recently created a new set of materials for foodservice operators that address the issue of seafood sustainability.

“Seafood is front and center when it comes to this issue and operators want tools and specifics that can help educate their customers,” says Claudia Hogue, foodservice marketing director for ASMI.