After decades of contributing to the burgeoning
waist of America with fat-ladened, high
calorie offerings, the healthy eating trend appears
to have reached the national fast food
chains.
Wendy’s, which was the first national chain
to offer a salad entree, has been joined by Jackin-
the Box and McDonald’s. The Jack-in-the-Box
salad additions to their menu have been accompanied
by a major, national advertising campaign.
Jack is really trying to put specialty salads
on the map.
But in truth, the chains are merely responding
to consumer demand and a trend that
has been apparent for years.
“Salads (at foodservice establishments)
have been around for a long time,” said Barbara
Metheny, the longtime foodservice purveyor
who is currently involved in business development
for J C Produce, Pico Rivera, Calif.
She said, like many items, specialty salads
were introduced by fine dining restaurants and
the concept has trickled all the way down to
the quick serve restaurant (QSR) category. “I
grew up in the Midwest and a combination
salad was cucumbers, tomatoes and iceberg
lettuce,” she said. “Everyone served cucumbers,
tomatoes and iceberg lettuce.”
Fine dining establishments started raising
the bar with the use of mixed greens in their
salads. This led to casual dining restaurants increasing
their salad offerings at about the same
time that the industry was offering the consumer
many different specialty salads in bags. Metheny
said many regional QSR’s jumped on the bandwagon
before Wendy’s, Jack-in-the-Box and
McDonald’s, but others are closely watching
what those national chains do.
“I am currently working with one QSR that
will remain nameless. They are growing very
rapidly. They currently have 30 outlets and plan
to grow another 50 percent this year. We were
working on a specialty salad mix but when they
saw what Jack-in-the-Box did they came back
into the shop and wanted to create something
better.”
Metheny explained that the QSR category
includes chains such as Rubio’s Fish Tacos and
Baja Fresh. These outlets consider themselves
a cut above the national fast food chains so they
need to distinguish themselves. If Jack-in-the-
Box is offering a specialty salad featuring
chicken, the regional QSRs want their salad to
be a little more gourmet.
Metheny said just the day before she had
some executives from the QSR in her facility with
many different salad blends laid out on the table
from them to choose from. “They were amazed
at what we could offer. I was thinking, ‘Where
have they been. Haven’t they been in their local
grocery store recently.’”
She added that the offerings the bagged
salad people are presenting to consumers are
very diverse and are helping to fuel this resurgence
in salads at the foodservice level. Consumers
can now take home a large variety of
specialty salads so for the restaurants to compete
they have to do at least as good. A salad
made of only romaine and iceberg isn’t going
to get the job done.
Metheny said her nameless 30-outlet QSR
decided on a traditional specialty mix and then
they are going to add a spring mix to it “in the
back of the house.” While this particular chain
is willing to do some mixing of its own, Metheny
said, for the most part, the QSRs and even casual
dining restaurants like premixed salads that
are basically “idiot-proof.”
As an aside, Metheny opined that many
of these restaurant executives are men and are
not doing their family shopping so sometimes
they are clueless about what is available. She
said this is especially true if they have been
working with a broad-line distributor for their
produce rather than with a specialty produce
supplier such as J C Produce. “Broadline distributors
typically aren’t that interested in showing
their customers something new. They might
not even know about it. A specialty produce
supplier can really help to introduce new products
to these foodservice operators.”
Staying on the salad theme, Metheny said
a number of restaurants are still using a predominantly
romaine/iceberg mix but then distinguishing
it with toppings such as glazed
walnuts and upgraded cheeses.
It is a pet peeve of Metheny’s that the national
chains are somewhat ruining the healthy
aspect of the salads by including four ounces
of a high calorie dressing with the serving. “I
love the Wendy’s salads. They are delicious, and
they allow me to eat healthy when I am out in
the field. But if you use all four ounces of the
dressing they give you, you might as well just
eat a hamburger. You are getting the same
amount of calories.”
Metheny would like to see the salad dressing
offerings be a bit more conservative and
relative to the eight ounces of salad that the
chain is serving.
For most QSR accounts, Metheny said that
even though she is providing the salad mix, they
get the dressing from their broadline distributor.
“We’re working on that. We think the dressing
should be part of the salad.”
But regardless of who provides the dressing
or how many ounces it is, Metheny said
this availability of specialty salads at the drivethrough
restaurants is very exciting for the produce
industry. More and more people are interested
in incorporating a healthy diet into their
routine and if the fast food companies help facilitate
that, it bodes well for the industry.
Metheny also commented on a few other
foodservice trends she has noticed. In-N-Out
Burger offers a high protein burger that includes
a healthy-sized patty wrapped in iceberg lettuce
with no bun or cheese. “I think we are going
to see more of these high protein items, which
should give a good shot in the arm to iceberg
lettuce.”
She has seen a very good growth in the
use of organic produce items. “Especially at the
university level. There are a lot of vegetarians
and people concerned about organic produce.
It is still only a small overall part of our business
but it’s growing. It will be interesting to see if
they stay that way when they get older.”
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