Are you branding your program, public foodservice outlets and catering services effectively? Start with a great logo, which informs branding and drives business.

By Dan Antonelli

Starting or growing a business is an exciting, frustrating, rewarding and arduous experience. It involves many considerations and a careful use of precious resources. In today’s marketplace, establishing a powerful and memorable brand is essential for any company’s success and, while most experts agree what branding is, few give the logo its due respect.

In my experience, a logo sets the stage for all of your strategic messaging. A logo is not just an equal part of a brand, like most experts would indicate. Like a bicycle wheel with many spokes, your branding spokes need to be connected to one central hub. Think of your logo as the hub for your brand and all other iterations of that logo as your spokes.

Logo Design: Look Before You Leap
As discussed, a professional logo serves as a solid foundation for your brand. A great logo conveys expertise, establishes a brand promise and creates an expectation for quality. While many business owners wouldn’t give a second thought to buying a $99 logo, there are some major points you would do well to consider before diving in.

First, make sure it is clear in the logo architecture, because you don’t have the luxury of years of brand recognition to get people to associate your name with your product or service. Likewise, you don’t have the large advertising budget required to brand generic icons that don’t help consumers understand the nature of your business.

Nearly 700 chefs benefit from fourth certification to be approved by the independent NCCA.

The American Culinary Federation’s Certified Culinary Educator^® (CCE^®) credential recently received accreditation from the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) under the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE). This is the fourth professional culinary certification offered by the St. Augustine, Fla.-based ACF that has received independent accreditation.

Credentials are becoming recognized as a growing alternative path for full-time workers wanting to highlight specialized skills for career advancement and higher earnings, according to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau in January, “Measuring Alternative Education Credentials: 2012.” Thirty-four million adults in the United States have a professional certification from an educational institution or organization.

“As research from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates, professional certification is important to full-time working professionals,” said Don Dickinson, CEC, CCA, AAC, chair, ACF Certification Commission. “With American Culinary Federation’s fourth credential receiving accreditation, we are pleased that our comprehensive certification program continues to grow in credibility and expand in recognition to help professional chefs reach their career goals.”

More than 12,800 chefs and foodservice professionals hold a professional certification from the American Culinary Federation, the largest professional membership organization for chefs in North America. Three other ACF certifications have received outside accreditation from ICE since 2011: Certified Executive Chef^® (CEC^®), Certified Sous Chef^® (CSC^®) and Certified Executive Pastry Chef^® (CEPC^®).

Americans are said to live and operate in an “experience” economy. But a new way of creating value via loyalty rather than premium price is beginning to emerge. What does this mean to our students and their future careers in foodservice? Part one of a two-part focus.

By Renee Zonka, RD, CEC, CHE, MBA

For decades through the 1990s, the U.S. economy was chiefly described as a “service” economy. An argument can be made that ours is still a service economy because more than 50% of the labor force in the United States is in the service sector as opposed to agriculture or manufacturing. How often have you called a company for service and spoken to someone with a foreign accent? Of course, I’m speaking of customer service. We’ve exported the delivery of so many services that many developing nations are considered service economies today.

Of course, a service economy can also refer to the relative importance of service in a product offering. Products today have a higher service component than in previous decades, and, virtually every product today has a service component to it. So there’s a strong case to be made that we’re still living and operating within a service economy.

The “Experience” Economy
But identifying our economy began to change in 1999 with the publication of a book by B. Joseph Pine, II, and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. Everyone can identify with the basic premise of an experience economy, in which companies state an “experience” when they engage customers in a memorable way.

Here’s an example: Kendall College operates a white-tablecloth restaurant open to the public that doubles as a real-life classroom for culinary-arts students, called, simply, The Dining Room. Peggy Ryan, a culinary instructor and daytime executive chef of The Dining Room, once menued a lentil soup with peppered crème fraîche and fried celery leaves. The student server placed a bowl in front of the guest that contained only the crème fraîche with the fried celery leaves. So it wasn’t soup when it arrived at the table. It became soup in front of the guest’s eyes when the student poured it into the bowl. For the guest, the act was lagniappe—a little something extra, as they say in New Orleans—that heightened the dining experience. 

The Global Culinary Innovators Association and International Food and Beverage Technology Association announced their respective formations at the industry’s largest trade show last month.

Two new organizations serving the foodservice industry launched at the National Restaurant Association’s 2014 Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago in May. Both aim to impact and benefit from the sharing of best practices and information with counterparts and colleagues around the world.

Following is a brief description of each new organization:

Global Culinary Innovators Association (GCIA)
The new association benefits corporate chefs and menu innovators from leading multiunit foodservice operations. Members will include company founders, leading culinarians and marketing experts who are spearheading the menu innovation for their companies within multiple industry segments.

Research and trend predictions point in the same direction: Use more fresh mango on menus.

National Mango Board consumer research shows that consumption of mango continues to grow. The trend toward healthy dining, as well as increased interest in tropical and global flavors, creates buzz about fresh mango.

Most recently, a quantitative study by research firm Datassential confirms use of fruit overall on menus has increased since 2008, with mango the sixth-fastest-growing fruit, climbing to the ninth-most-commonly menued fruit in 2013.

Datassential research reveals that mangos are menued in all restaurant segments and usage is growing across regions, dayparts and cuisine types.