We have extensive experience in the foodservice industry. We’ve talked to fast food customers, lunch ladies, franchisees, food service operators and managers, distributors, restaurant owners, chefs, servers, and online food merchants. Along the way, we’ve worked on everything from menu ideation and design to ad research and dine-arounds, to customer satisfaction, food development, and taste testing. We’ve explored the customer-server relationship, drive-thru experiences, brand perceptions, vending machine interfaces, seating configurations, and more.
Business to Business
A major U.S.-based foodservice provider wanted to experience the day-to-day operational realities of K-12 “lunch ladies,” with the goal of developing insights to guide the innovation team. Utilizing back-of-house ethnographic observations, a cross-functional team discovered empathy for their customers, solvable pain points, and eye-opening white spaces ripe for disruptive solutions. Key insights were distilled and explored through team workshops for operational solutions. The results? A new brand strategy, website redesign, a portfolio renovation, sales collateral development, and new product charters for multiple product categories. Finally, foodservice partnerships were strengthened through the collaborative spirit and transparencies in communication.
Consumer
A world-recognized leader in the pizza QSR industry wished to obtain feedback on a new product concept to help them identify the most compelling way to position the product relative to the competition. A series of in-depth interviews were conducted among consumers, including parents and tweens. As a result of the research, the client gained insights about what made the new product compelling to consumers, gleaned insight on the consumer language and phrases used to describe the product and identified a positioning statement that consumers found most personally relevant, motivating and the best fit for the pizza. In addition, the client uncovered that the product itself needed to be modified prior to quantitative testing.
