Toque of the Town: Arby's Need for Speed
Arby's Calvin Harris races to bring more healthful options to the menu.
By Monica Rogers, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 5/1/2004 12:00:00 AM
The cow buyer who sent fairy tale Jack home with the seeds to his beanstalk-begat fortune saw potential in the boy. The chef who sent Calvin Harris home with a handful of dried beans and a beat-up skillet had similar vision. “He said, ‘I’ll give you 30 days to learn how to flip these beans in the pan without dropping any,’” Harris recalls, talking about his first mentor, Chef Steve Huntyan at Harvey Hotels.
 "The hardest thing for me in going from fine dining to the fast-food arena was understanding the new customer base and adjusting to the skill level of the employee base," says Calvin Harris, Arby's corporate executive chef. |
Harris, then a breakfast cook for the chain, says bean tossing was perfect practice for flipping omelets, a requisite skill for a chef at the hotel’s big buffets. “It was my first big break,” he says.
Harris went on to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America, followed by a career at country clubs, hotels and TGI Friday’s, before landing the top toque position at Arby’s Inc. in 2001. “I think the bean story stands out for me because somebody basically said, ‘Let’s see what you can do,’ and set me loose,” he says. “I’ve always been one to respond to a challenge.”
Pumping the Pipeline
Harris, corporate executive chef for Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Arby’s, has plenty of challenges to juggle this year. Celebrating its 40th birthday with new President and CEO Douglas Benham at the helm, 3,400-unit Arby’s is trying to shake off midlife sluggishness by stepping up its speed-to-market processes and rushing to fill new-product pipelines with more healthful, relevant foods.
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“In the past, we may have introduced two to three new products a year,” says Harris. “But now, with consumer demand being what it is, we may bring as much as three to four times that to market.”
Speed is of the essence as Arby’s works to regain the momentum lost in the last 12 to 18 months. The company admits to coasting a bit too far on the strength of its 2001 gangbuster Market Fresh introductions. “We lost our way in 2003, losing transactions and receiving feedback from consumers that our products were not nutritionally relevant,” says Vice President of Brand Development Keith Gordon.
Gordon blames the slowdown on antiquated systems and the lack of R&D staff support. “Harris was basically a one-man band,” he says.
This year Arby’s has dialed up the front end of the development process, expanded its team (Vice President of Product Development Jeff Blackman joined Harris’ group in March) and stepped up consumer testing. “Ideas that concept well don’t sit around any more,” says Harris. “They are moving straight to taste testing.”
And speeding the transition of test-proven products to market, the company has empowered its commercialization team to move faster, “working with manufacturers to formulize recipes, getting product into the pipeline more quickly,” Harris concludes.
New York-based Michael W. Gallo, vice president and research analyst for CL King and Associates, says Arby’s move to introducing more healthful products quickly may help it regain ground with the adult fast-food crowd. “The industry environment is a lot more favorable now than it was at this time last year, where it was all about who could sell more product for 99 cents,” Gallo says. “This year it’s more of a product war then a price war. Arby’s move to more healthy items with new salads, sandwiches and wraps makes them a player. Time will tell.”
Healthy Umbrella
Arby’s launched its new Low Carbys line in March under the Market Fresh umbrella. The line includes three salads and two wraps. Harris says the goal is to give customers a greater variety of familiar, healthful options with an interesting twist.
 Expanding its low-carb options, Arby's just introduced Market Fresh Bowls. |
The Asian Sesame Salad, $3.99, blends iceberg, romaine and spring-mix lettuces; diced grilled chicken; shredded red cabbage; shredded carrots; Mandarin-orange slices; Asian noodles; sliced almonds and Asian-sesame dressing. Harris has been trying to get more Asian-flavored items on the Arby’s menu. While attempts to market a Hawaiian-ham sandwich didn’t come to fruition, the pineapple-teriyaki spread used on the sandwich prototype became the foundation for the Asian-sesame dressing on the salad.
Inspiration for the Martha’s Vineyard Salad, $3.99, came from Harris’ memories of working as a hotel chef. The salad combines iceberg, romaine and spring-mix lettuces; diced grilled chicken; diced apples; dried cranberries; grape tomatoes; shredded cheddar cheese; sliced almonds and raspberry vinaigrette.
“I often remember something I’ve done in the past,” Harris explains. “While it may be too high end in one way, an element of the idea—a flavor profile or classic technique—can still work in the fast-food arena. Maybe I don’t call it glace de volaille, but a chicken-stock reduction as a flavor profile may work very well in a sandwich sauce.”
The Santa Fe Salad, $3.99, had him thinking even farther back. “I grew up in Dallas in a restaurant family, so I’m very comfortable with Tex-Mex combinations,” says Harris, whose dad operated a barbecue restaurant. The new salad blends iceberg, romaine and spring-mix lettuces with chopped chicken fingers, roasted corn and black beans, grape tomatoes, red-onion rings, shredded pepper Jack and cheddar cheeses, seasoned tortilla strips and Santa Fe ranch dressing.
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“There’s such a nice color, flavor and textural balance with this salad,” says Harris. “You get deep savory flavors from the black beans and roasted peppers, sweetness from the corn, crunch from the chicken tenders and richness from using two kinds of cheese.” He experimented with many different flavors for the dressing, starting with ancho chiles and working up to smoky chipotles. First Harris combined chipotle with a vinaigrette. “But it didn’t coat the greens well enough, so I merged the chipotle peppers with ranch dressing,” he says.
Wrap and Bowl
Arby’s two Low Carbys wraps—the Ultimate BLT, $3.99, low-carb wheat wrap with mayonnaise, green-leaf lettuce, tomato and pepper bacon; and the Roast Turkey Ranch and Bacon, $4.59, with ranch sauce, roast turkey, pepper bacon, tomato, cheddar cheese, red onion and green leaf lettuce in a low-carb wheat wrap—arose from the chain’s new product-marketing group. Comprised of franchisees, marketing personnel and the culinary research staff, the group meets as often as needed (from 2 to more than 5 times a month) to “move strong ideas through the ideation process more quickly,” Harris explains.
Adding even more variety to the mix, Arby’s is also making several of its more popular Market Fresh sandwiches available as “bowls.” For these, sandwich fixings are served without the bread in a bowl. They will be launched in the fall.
And the low-fat Napa Valley Turkey Sandwich, $4.29, sliced turkey, banana peppers, black olives, cucumber, red onion, tomato, mixed field greens and fat-free champagne vinaigrette on a baguette, is a low-fat option with less than 7 grams of fat also set for introduction in fall.
As with all new products at Arby’s, the goal with the new Market Fresh items is to entice new guests while driving frequency of regular users, says Gordon. While he won’t release exact sales, Gordon says Market Fresh items “make up half of the sandwich offerings, and sales continue to grow.”
Initial sales readings on the new items are promising. In market tests, “the salads went bonkers, selling at 8 to 10 percent of the menu mix,” Harris says. Figures are not yet available on the wraps or bowls, but the Chicken Salad Sandwich, $3.99 with red delicious apple slices, grapes, chopped celery, toasted pecans and green-leaf lettuce on honey-wheat bread, also sold at 8 to 10 percent of the mix during test. Arby’s will offer it in the fall.
Here to Stay
Not a big believer in limited-time offers, Arby’s moves most of its new products to the core menu. “Eighty percent of what we put out there we put out there with the understanding that if it can sustain itself at a 2 percent of sales minimum—with and without promotion—it has the potential to stay on the menu,” says Gordon.
 Meeting demand for bold flavors, Arby's Santa Fe Salad is a toss of iceberg, romaine and spring-mix lettuces with chopped chicken fingers, roasted corn and black beans, grape tomatoes, red-onion rings, shredded pepper Jack and cheddar cheeses, seasoned tortilla strips and Santa Fe ranch dressing. |
For example, Arby’s French Dip ’n Swiss sandwich, $3.79, oven-roasted beef topped with Swiss cheese and served with hot au jus, complemented the rest of the menu, bringing in new users and increasing frequency. “It’s been very appealing to women in the 18-to-49 age group,” says Harris. Initially introduced years ago, the sandwich was reformulated for introduction last fall. Harris replaced processed cheese with natural Swiss, added artisan-style bread and created a thicker au jus.
As Arby’s moves into the second half of the year, Harris will introduce more new sandwiches, such as the Asiago Turkey Sandwich, oven-roasted turkey with Asiago cheese, tomato slices, mixed field greens and a spread made with sun-dried tomatoes and Parmesan.
He also plans to introduce products with bolder flavors and ethnic flair such as Mediterranean, Southwestern and Latin, more artisan breads and a wider range of dipping sauces.
“These are exciting times for me. When I first stepped out of fine dining into the chain-restaurant world, working for Tim Soufan in R&D at TGI Friday’s, he promised me I would never look back,” says Harris. “I haven’t.”
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