Culinary Trekking

Food manufacturers and menu developers are always looking for creative ways to attract new customers while keeping their loyalists excited. Trade journals do a great job of identifying the latest flavor and menu trends, but there’s no substitute for actually tasting the food on site. Culinary tours let food industry professionals experience new flavors and concepts, check out unfamiliar gold-standard items, and find inspiration for future menu items and retail products. But you have to get out of your test kitchen and go.

MISE EN PLACE

Whether you’re a supplier offering a tour to your R&D menu-developing customer or an internal corporate restaurant team seeking to generate new ideas, your culinary tour planning should align with your budget. A big budget might permit you to hire a culinary tour consulting company and to fly your R&D and marketing teams to a choice location. A small budget might mean organizing a culinary tour in your own city or combining it with an upcoming trade show the team has already planned to attend. Whatever the budget’s size, anyone can organize a successful culinary tour. But it takes research and smart planning.

A pre-tour brainstorming session should pinpoint the tour group’s core competencies, future menu plans, and any trends or specific food items they’d like to explore.

Make a list of desired “tangibles,” such as menu concepts, flavor profiles and specialty ingredients—then craft a plan that targets specific establishments. Sites can include restaurants, coffee shops, crafty artisan boutiques, pushcarts, farmers’ markets, ethnic eateries and supermarkets, or even a local food manufacturer that is amenable to a tour. Locations should be prescreened to ensure they still exist, the menu items are current and the food meets your group’s expectations. The final itinerary should include each establishment’s street and web address, current menu, and your group’s daily agenda (sequence of visits, time allotted for each visit, etc.). To minimize stress and distractions, professional transportation can be prearranged. For walking tours, make maps available.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Big cities provide opportunities to experience big-picture trends, such as artisan comfort food, small plates, better burgers, kids’ cuisine and street food. They also can offer insights about the dishes and flavors the locals regularly eat.