Editorial: Give ’em What They Want

The industry is addressing nutrition and food education as the customer asks for it.

By Mary Boltz Chapman, Editor-in-Chief -- Chain Leader, 7/1/2006

Sometimes a theme emerges in one of our issues. Completely unplanned, it materializes as we’re editing copy when it comes in or proofing pages at the last minute. This time, it’s Whole Foods.

Literally in a couple of places, figuratively in others, the natural and organic market, and all that it stands for, appears often from the first page of this magazine to the last.

Turn the Page
The cover, and the Cover Story, of course, features Steve Ells, founder, chairman and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, who believes that improving the quality of ingredients, not the variety, will determine the success of the chain. He says people want to know where their food comes from and that it has integrity. Customers, shareholders and its big brother, McDonald’s, all seem to agree with Ells, though perhaps for different reasons.

Go to Page 2, and find Senior Editor Dave Farkas’ interview with Michael Kaufman, the former president of Metromedia Restaurant Group who is now working with a small Washington, D.C., outfit on Harry’s Essential Grille. The concept focuses its menu on pedigreed food. According to Kaufman, customers know which farm the carrots on their salads came from—there might even be an enlarged photograph of carrots from that very grower next to their table.

Our Storyboard discusses the new ad campaign from Baja Fresh, which emphasizes its fresh ingredients and no-microwaves, no-freezers, no-can openers method of preparing them.

In our Toque of the Town feature, Kurt Hankins, senior vice president of menu development and innovation for 1,846-unit Applebee’s, foresees the day he can walk outside and gather the herbs needed for a new recipe.

Even this month’s Off the Clock—on the last page of the magazine—fits the theme: Happy Joe’s Training Guru and Chef of the World Robert Lewis spends his free time educating diabetics about the foods they can eat and how to prepare them.

The Dissenting Vote
Ironically, at the same time we were putting this issue together, news was coming in from several sources telling America that the restaurant industry is bad for our diets.

Portions are too large, says a report commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration, calorie counts are too high, and nutrition information is too rare and often inaccurate. It further suggests that restaurants should offer education on healthy lifestyles. (The report does say that there is no proven direct link between restaurant use and obesity, but the media doesn’t put that in headlines.)

And the trans fats in KFC’s signature fried chicken are allegedly so plentiful and the chain’s use of them so deceptive that the Center for Science in the Public Interest felt compelled to sue the chain over it.

The Educated Customer
I cheer the companies, including many in this issue, who are adding healthful items and educating guests about the wholesomeness of their ingredients. Not because those items are better for you, per se, but because the chains are providing what their customers (not necessarily KFC’s customers or In-N-Out Burger’s customers) are asking for and actually buying. If the Food and Drug Administration and the Center for Science in the Public Interest would sit back and watch, instead of trying to tell the industry what to do, they might witness the very results they are fighting for.