Digital Food Photo’s Sell Fresh Food Fast

When consumers are Ready-2-Eat or when they want Heat-N-Eat grocerant niche fresh prepared food one thing is sure according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru™ ‘they eat with their eye’s first. 

Today, photo’ of food taken by people eating a meal out are flooding the internet. New York a Latin restaurant called Comodo decided to capitalize on the trend by creating an Instagram hashtag, #comodomenu.  The hashtag allow anyone to browse the hashtag to view images of the menu items as well as posting their own photos of what they ordered while at the restaurant. Sounds simple enough. 

The marketing campaign was a homerun, generating so many reservations that people had to call five months in advance for a seat. To place an order, diners simply show a photo of their chosen item. Other restaurants have since followed suit and the trend is likely to keep spreading. Creating a hashtag is, after all, free foodies have flooded Instagram with food photos and www.Tagboard.com has become a hotbed for food research geeks. 

Digital menus, digital story telling innovations are edging out good old fashioned paper menus – and consumers appear to welcome the change. In fact IRI reports that “60% of all shopping research is done through mobile”.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  Food that looks good sells. 

Pushing the limits, Pizza Hut launched "the world's first subconscious menu” at 300 locations in the U.K. The menu, based on months of retina scanning and psychological research, lets customers build their own pizzas simply by looking at images of toppings on a tablet. The longer they let their eyes rest on a particular image, the more likely the system is to automatically add that item to their pizza. And if they are not happy with the selection, all they need to do is glance at the “restart” button. If the system is a success, count on seeing it here in the United States soon. Apparently, 98 percent of customers are happy so far. What do you think? Good or bad idea? I like the fact that Pizza Hut is pushing the limits. 

Customer empowered ordering has arrived new self-ordering kiosks at the entryway to fast-food restaurants and C-stores like Wawa and could revolutionize the food industry, according to a prediction by FirstWeFeast.com.

Chili’s has installed 45,000 tabletop tablets, becoming “the king of human-less food ordering.” Research also shows customers tend to order more when faced with a full array of colorful choices and specials at their fingertips. A picture is worth a thousand words.  Digital Menu boards and menus work. 

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions 5P’s of Food Marketing can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information