J. Bennett had the opportunity to visit Taco Bell’s food development lab. In addition to an expanded waistline he got insights on Taco Bell’s menu development process:

• Taco Bell is now known for its more esoteric menu items like the Taco Shell made out of Doritos, or a quesadilla inside a burrito.
• Taco Bell sees itself as a food innovation company. Bringing creative items to the menu is key to remaining relevant by generating headlines in the news, and discussion on social media.
• Things begin with ideation sessions where as many as 600 ideas a year are considered.
• For the 30 that are selected for advanced consideration, the next step is to nail down the recipe – an iterative process that requires as many as 40 tries.
• Reactions are gauged in part through sensory rooms, where tasters are led into small cubicles equipped with cameras to record the reaction as they try the product.
• The product is then tried out in test markets, and various metrics are measured, such as the ratio of likes to dislikes (7:1 is considered good), percentage of customers who order it (12% is good, though with the Doritos Taco it was 33%), and if the product is generating new sales, or is merely redirecting money from existing products.
• If the product is received well it rolls out nationally. The entire process takes about six to nine months.
• Most items that result from this process don’t stay on the menu for too long. Once the buzz has died down and the headlines stop coming, the items are quietly removed.
• Some of the products that Taco Bell is experimenting with include a burger burrito, a maple-butter flavoured cone filled with crispy chicken, a mac & cheese quesadilla, and multiple variations of food on an edible tortilla stick.

Read more about what it’s like in the labs over here.

Source: Thrillist

Christian Millman wrote about some of the unique challenges of providing food for space travellers:

• The first big step for human space exploration was proving, in 1962, that the human body could consume food in zero gravity.
• Later in the 1960s astronauts were sent with the freeze dried ice cream that is oddly popular in science stores across the world to this day. Astronauts, for their part, hated it so much that freeze dried space ice cream has never left earth again.
• More generally astronauts hated the food that they were being sent with enough that there was a mini-insurrection – an astronaut smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space in his space suit.
• The sandwich created a cloud of floating bread bits that led to Congressional hearings and a promise by NASA to prevent food smuggling in the future.
• Food boredom seems to increase dietary requirements. Even after upping daily calorie intake to 2,800 NASA found that astronauts were returning to earth having lost substantial amounts of weight.
• In 1973 Skylab, the predecessor to the ISS, had a menu of 72 items. NASA declared success when astronauts returned home weighing about the same.
• The next step is to find food that could survive a multi-year trip to Mars and still be considered edible by astronauts.

Read more about the dynamics of space food here.

Source: Discover

Diners are known for their seemingly endless menus, quality food, and wonderful atmosphere. They’re going out of business, writes Aaron Elstein, at least in New York anyway:

• The number of NY diners has decreased from 1,000 to 398 in a generation.
• The biggest problem is rent. The extensive inventories require extensive storage space and rent can be as high as $25,000 a month.
• Employees have to be skilled enough to make 400 different dishes and master 60 different types of salads.
• Food prices change all the time but updating a diner’s voluminous menu to reflect new prices requires thousands of dollars for new printing.
• Landlords, for their part, prefer renting space to national chains like Applebee’s because they know they can go to the corporate parent if an individual restaurant owner fails to pay rent.
• On the other end of the spectrum food trucks are putting pressure on margins by offering short, focused menus which lead to low-priced food.

The full article looks at the Greek origins of diners and interviews owners of some of New York’s best diners. Read it here.

Source: Crain’s

Via: Marginal Revolution

The next time you go to a restaurant, these are the things that servers are looking at found Jessica Sidman:

• Long sleeves in the summer indicate a person with cash and good tips.
• Gay people are also thought to be better than average tippers.
• Those with reservations are normally searched for on the internet in advance to figure out what they do. The menu recommendations and alcohol price range that is mentioned will be adjusted accordingly.
• Those that get alcohol early are normally in for a long expensive night and are worth a lot of money.
• Servers can take control of their tips by accurately assessing the situation. Lawyers have a lot of money but lawyers who won their case should be offered wine, while those that lost should be encouraged to get a Scotch and bourbon.

Read other things that your waiters and waitresses are thinking about you when you walk through the door over here.

Source: Washington City Paper

Via: Marginal Revolution

In a documentary David Borenstein looked at the foreigner renting industry in China:

• China is in the midst of a construction boom that has left multiple properties in search of a buyer.
• One way that realtors can boost demand is by renting foreigners.
• Firms provide menus where customers can select skin colours and nationalities.
• By having such faces present when interested buyers come around to visit, developers can make an area seem more globalized than it really is.
• Some of the purchased foreigners will play the role of low level VIPs to further enhance property values.

Watch the full documentary here.

Source: The New York Times