The Customer Is the New Food Developer

 

Rutter’s understands something many foodservice operators still miss: the best new menu idea may already be living inside the customer’s head according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru®
at Foodservice Solutions® based in Tacoma, Washington.

Here is a question every restaurant, convenience store, grocery retailer and foodservice operator should be asking in 2026:

What if your next great menu item isn't sitting in your test kitchen?

What if it is sitting in the head of your customer?

Rutter’s is betting that it is.

The York, Pennsylvania-based convenience-store retailer has launched its Customer Craving Contest, inviting consumers to create their dream Rutter’s menu item. Customers name the creation, build it with ingredients, explain why it is irresistible and tell Rutter’s why it deserves to become the next big bite.

Then comes the really interesting part.

Rutter’s will select 10 submissions, narrow those to five finalists and let customers vote on social media. The winning creation becomes a limited-time Rutter’s menu item, and the creator gets free fuel for a year.

Now that's more than a contest.

That's customer-powered product development.

And I believe foodservice operators should pay very close attention.

Because the consumer is changing from food buyer to food participant.

 

7 Reasons the Customer Is Becoming the New Food Developer

1. Customers Don't Just Want to Buy Food—They Want to Discover Food

Food discovery has fundamentally changed.

For years, restaurants controlled discovery through advertising, menu boards, television, radio, print and promotions.

Today, discovery happens everywhere.

TikTok.

Instagram.

YouTube.

Google.

Restaurant apps.

Delivery platforms.

Reviews.

Creators.

Friends.

And increasingly, artificial intelligence.

Datassential describes social-media data as a source of real-time insight into food and beverage trends, flavor preferences and dining behavior.

That's an important shift.

The food marketer's job is no longer simply to push a product.

It is increasingly to understand what consumers are discovering, talking about, combining and craving.

Rutter's takes that one step further:

It asks customers to create the discovery.

 

2. The Customer Has Become Part of the R&D Department

Think about what happens when 1,000 customers submit food ideas.

Rutter's isn't just getting 1,000 sandwich ideas.

It is potentially getting 1,000 pieces of consumer intelligence.

Customers reveal:

·       Flavor combinations.

·       Ingredient preferences.

·       Portion expectations.

·       Handheld preferences.

·       Texture preferences.

·       Regional tastes.

·       Craving occasions.

·       Price/value expectations.

·       Food trends.

·       Product combinations.

·       Emotional connections to food.

That's market research disguised as fun.

And it can be more revealing than asking:

“What new products would you like to see?”

Consumers aren't always good at answering abstract research questions.

But give someone a blank menu and say:

“Build your perfect meal.”

Suddenly they have an opinion.

 

3. Customization Is Evolving Into Personalization

There is a difference between:

“Build your own sandwich.”

and

“Invent the sandwich you wish existed.”

The first is customization.

The second is personalization.

And personalization is becoming increasingly important.

The 2026 foodservice environment is particularly interesting because consumers are simultaneously demanding value, convenience and experiences that feel relevant to them.

Popmenu's 2026 restaurant research found that 68% of U.S. consumers said they were cutting back on restaurant dining, while reported weekly restaurant spending fell from approximately $115 in June 2025 to about $90 in February 2026.

That makes customer relevance even more important.

When consumers are spending carefully, they have less patience for food they don't really want.

They want:

Worth it.

And “worth it” increasingly means more than price.

It means:

I like it.
I discovered it.
It fits me.
It's convenient.
It's interesting.
And I want to tell somebody about it.

 

4. Limited-Time Offers Have Become the Foodservice Laboratory

Rutter's is also using one of the most powerful tools in modern foodservice:

The LTO.

Limited-time offers have exploded because they provide something every food marketer needs:

permission to experiment.

According to Technomic data reported by Axios in 2024, the number of restaurant LTOs had increased 53% over four years.

Why?

Because an LTO answers an important operational question:

“What happens if we try this?”

It doesn't require the operator to make a permanent commitment.

That makes the LTO a foodservice laboratory.

Rutter's adds another layer:

The customer helps design the experiment.

That's smart.

5. Lay's Already Proved That Consumers Will Invent Products

Rutter's isn't starting from scratch.

One of the greatest examples of participatory food marketing remains Lay's Do Us a Flavor.

Lay's asked consumers to create new potato-chip flavors.

The response was enormous.

Millions of submissions eventually produced real products, including the 2013 winning Cheesy Garlic Bread flavor.

Then in 2024, Lay's brought the program back after a seven-year hiatus, again asking consumers for flavor ideas and turning consumer submissions into finalist products that fans could vote on.

Notice the formula:

Consumer idea
↓
Brand development
↓
Consumer voting
↓
Product launch
↓
Consumer trial
↓
Social conversation

That's not traditional advertising.

That's a consumer-powered innovation engine.

Rutter's is taking essentially the same thinking into prepared food and convenience-store foodservice.

 

6. Social Media Turns the Customer Into the Media Department

Here's where the Rutter's concept becomes particularly powerful.

Imagine someone submits a sandwich.

They tell their friends.

Their friends vote.

Their family shares it.

A local food creator notices it.

Someone makes a video.

Someone else says:

“I would put hot honey on that.”

Now the company has something advertising dollars can't easily manufacture:

conversation.

Toast research published in 2024 found that consumers wanted restaurants to use social media for promotions, new menu items and visual content, with 38% saying they preferred videos showing the dining experience and 44% preferring promotions.

Meanwhile, social-media food discovery continued gaining influence in 2025. Mintel's U.S. research tracks social media's role in foodservice discovery and specifically identifies restaurant deals and ingredient transparency among content consumers want.

The lesson?

Don't just advertise the food. Give people something to talk about.

 

7. The Best Marketing May Be Letting Customers Market for You

This may be the biggest lesson of all.

Rutter's isn't merely buying attention.

It is creating a reason for customers to generate attention.

That distinction matters.

A conventional campaign says:

“Look at our new sandwich.”

A participatory campaign says:

“Look what our customer created.”

Those are two completely different stories.

The first is corporate.

The second is human.

And food is particularly well suited for human storytelling.

People have favorite foods.

Family food memories.

Road-trip foods.

Late-night foods.

Comfort foods.

Celebration foods.

Foods they eat after work.

Foods they eat while traveling.

Foods they invented themselves.

That means food has something most products don't have:

personal history.

 

The Grocerant Advantage: Consumers Don't Care About Your Silos

This is where I come back to the Grocerant.

Consumers don't wake up thinking:

“Today I will shop the convenience channel.”

They think:

“I'm hungry.”

They don't care whether their meal comes from:

·       A restaurant.

·       A convenience store.

·       A supermarket.

·       A dollar store.

·       A warehouse club.

·       A drive-thru.

·       A delivery kitchen.

·       A virtual restaurant.

They care about:

Price + Quality + Convenience + Speed + Experience + Discovery.

That's the Grocerant world.

And convenience stores are increasingly important players in that world.

Rutter's understands that food is not simply something sold inside a convenience store.

Food is one of the reasons consumers choose the store.

 

The Handheld Opportunity Is Sitting Right in Front of Them

There is another reason I like the Rutter's idea.

It's built around something consumers already understand:

the handheld.

Sandwiches.

Burgers.

Wraps.

Breakfast sandwiches.

Chicken sandwiches.

Tacos.

Pizza.

Snacks.

The handheld is portable, familiar and easy to personalize.

And portability matters because today's consumer increasingly eats according to occasion, not according to the traditional breakfast-lunch-dinner clock.

The question isn't always:

“What should I have for lunch?”

It can be:

“What can I eat right now?”

That's a very different foodservice question.

 

The Consumer Is Also Bringing Ideas From the Internet Into the Store

This is perhaps the most fascinating development.

Food trends don't necessarily begin with food companies anymore.

They can begin with consumers.

A creator posts something.

Consumers modify it.

Someone adds an ingredient.

Someone creates a mashup.

Someone makes a “secret menu” combination.

Someone posts it.

Other people try it.

Then the operator notices.

And suddenly the foodservice industry is responding to something that began outside the foodservice industry.

Datassential's social-data research explicitly describes social media as a source of real-time foodservice intelligence.

That means operators need to be listening before they start cooking.

 

The Next Menu Board May Be Written by the Customer

This is where I believe foodservice is headed.

The traditional menu-development model was:

Chef → Corporate → Test Kitchen → Menu → Customer

The emerging model is:

Customer → Social Conversation → Data → Culinary Team → LTO → Customer

That is a radically different feedback loop.

And AI will only accelerate it.

Food marketers now have tools capable of analyzing enormous quantities of reviews, social posts, search behavior, purchase history and menu data.

Academic research published in 2024 examined AI's growing role in food marketing through personalized recommendations, predictive analytics and consumer-behavior modeling. (arXiv)

So imagine the future:

A customer creates a sandwich.

10,000 people interact with the idea.

AI identifies the ingredients consumers repeatedly mention.

The culinary team sees the opportunity.

The company creates three prototypes.

Customers vote.

One becomes an LTO.

Sales data determines whether it becomes permanent.

That's customer-driven food innovation.

 

And Here's the Most Important Part: Give Customers Credit

This is where brands sometimes get it wrong.

If a customer creates the idea, recognize the customer.

Name the creation.

Tell the story.

Put the creator's story on social media.

Let them participate in the launch.

Give them bragging rights.

Because recognition turns a transaction into an experience.

Rutter's is doing precisely that by making the winning customer part of the story.

The customer doesn't just get:

“a sandwich.”

They get:

“My sandwich.”

That's powerful.

 

The Future of Food Marketing Is Participatory

The food industry has spent decades asking:

“How do we get consumers to buy more?”

I think the better question is:

“How do we get consumers to participate more?”

Participation creates engagement.

Engagement creates conversation.

Conversation creates discovery.

Discovery creates trial.

Trial creates data.

Data creates better products.

Better products create loyalty.

And loyalty creates sales.

That's a much more powerful marketing loop than another billboard saying:

“Try our new sandwich.”

 

The Grocerant Guru® Bottom Line

Rutter's has done something deceptively simple.

It has asked its customers:

“What do you want us to make?”

But underneath that simple question is a very sophisticated food-marketing strategy.

It combines:

Customer research.

Product development.

Personalization.

Social engagement.

Food discovery.

LTO experimentation.

Loyalty.

User-generated content.

And sales.

All wrapped around one craving.

That's smart foodservice marketing.

And here's my prediction:

The restaurant, grocery retailer or convenience store that listens best to its customers may not simply discover the next food trend.

It may create it.

 

Three Insights from the Grocerant Guru®

1. Stop Asking Customers What They Like. Ask Them What They Would Create.

A survey gives you an answer.

A creation contest gives you an idea.

The future belongs to foodservice companies that turn customer feedback into customer participation.

2. Make the Customer the Hero, Not the Product

Consumers have seen millions of food advertisements.

But they haven't seen millions of stories about someone just like them creating the next menu item.

That's why customer-generated food has marketing power.

The product gets the sale. The story gets the attention.

3. The Menu Is No Longer Just a Menu—It's a Media Platform

Every new food item can now be:

A product.
A photograph.
A video.
A conversation.
A contest.
A story.
A social post.
An LTO.
A loyalty event.
And a customer relationship.

That's the Grocerant opportunity.

Don't just give consumers something to eat.

Give them something to discover.

Give them something to create.

Give them something to talk about.

And, every once in a while, give them something they can proudly say:

“I invented that.”

That is where food marketing gets very interesting.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us 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.