Restaurant and Food Service Blog

Pssst. The secret’s out at KFC. Well, sort of. Colonel Harland Sanders’ handwritten recipe of 11 herbs and spices was to be removed Tuesday from safekeeping at KFC’s corporate offices for the first time in decades. The temporary relocation is allowing KFC to revamp security around a yellowing sheet of paper that contains one of the country’s most famous recipes.

Shrouded in secrecy, you would think that the folks at YUM! were part of the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. Apparently there are only 2 top execs at KFC who really know the entire recipe and a third who knows the secret combination to the lock to get into the safe. Even all of the suppliers who formulate the recipe are not in the know. There are several manufacturers who only make parts of the recipe and are sworn to a secrecy agreement.

I tried to find out if the famous Todd Wilbur, author of Top Secret Recipe Books, doesn’t have a “clone” recipe online – but does have one of the famous Big Mac!

With so much word of this on the internet and KFC themselves releasing this in a press release, you really have to wonder how secret is this recipe anyway? This recipes has make billions of dollars for the company and they want to hold it close to their chest, but in the same conversation they let the whole world know that it will be temporarily out and be relocated. Sounds more like PR spin then anything else.

I thought that parent company YUM! could be more creative then this.

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The pubs in Britain are serving fewer drinks than ever. Publicans say that they are pulling 1.4 million pints a day – 1.6 million fewer than at the height of the market in 1979. The decline has been blamed on closures after the smoking ban, rising costs and competition from supermarkets.

With an economic downturn as well as other rising costs, many are foregoing the typical run to the local pub and instead drinking their beer at home in front of the television.

The Campaign for Real Ale, a consumer group promoting traditional pubs, says more than 1,400 pubs made their final “last call” last year. the campaign says more than half of British villages are dry for the first time since the Norman Conquest of 1066.

With beer being such a staple in the entire country, you may wonder how this could happen. But it almost seems like a perfect storm. Rising costs, a nationwide ban on smoking, a poor economy and a new fad of hard ciders has made beer less interesting.

But maybe this is a sign that pub owners need to adapt to the times. One particular pub goer in Leeds mentioned that he was going out more now with the current ban on smoking. It has become more family friendly for him and his family to go out and enjoy a meal. With so many other of the old guard pubs going out of business and many of these being the places where many would booze and smoke until early in the next morning, we may see a new kind of British pub appear in the wake of this movement.

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Celebrity chef-restaurateur Bobby Flay and business partner Laurence Kretchmer are moving downscale with the launch of what is expected to be the first of a chain of fast-casual burger joints. It seems as though the “better burger” segment may be the “it girl” today. With the current news on other better burgers such as Five Guys and The Habit, it seems as though every one wants some skin in the game.

But with the scare du jour, ie, salmonella, mad cow, etc, how are we so sure that this latest craze will not get snuffed out by something so random? Peter Romeo in his latest blog posting, Bugging Out, talks about how something such as the current salmonella breakout can turn into something very different once in the hands of the public perception.

But as the US economy continues to look bleak there is still a ray of hope for the restaurant industry as smaller concepts continue to grow and show that they have legs. These smaller concepts, although very risky, are probably where we are going to see the greatest grow potential in the next year.

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A monthlong standoff came to an end Tuesday when stockholders of OSI Restaurant Partners just barely approved selling it to two buyout firms. Now industry experts and perhaps employees, too, wonder whether a sale of OSI’s brands is on the horizon.

Finally, the sale of OSI looks like it will finally be complete. What does this mean for the casual dining behemoth?
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Several grocery stores and fast food restaurants said Monday that they are temporarily pulling sliced tomatoes from their restaurants and shelves in the wake of a mysterious salmonella outbreak that has spread to at least 16 states.

Just about a year ago we were having salmonella issues with spinach, now we are seeing with tomatoes. Oddly enough, it is with particular varieties – plum and roma.

Many of the chains across the country have pulled tomatoes from their menu – McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Brinker International – all have made adjustments. In addition, it is uncertain when they will bring them back.

This recent outbreak brings larger concerns as to the fragility of our food supply and will certainly put a larger focus on the tomato industry.

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Today is National Doughnut Day.  Krispy Kreme is giving away a free doughnut to every customer in honor of this and it probably could not have come at a better time as far as PR and marketing. But it may only be short lived and may not get the full attention to help drive any significant traffic to stores.

With the price of gas reaching $4 per gallon and food costs running at all time highs, it will be more difficult for many concepts to make ends meet.

Just yesterday in the Nation’s Restaurant News, there was word that Metromedia Restaurants may be in serious financial trouble. Just last month, Nexcen reported that bankruptcy may be in its future.

Troubling times for the restaurant industry.

To better prepare students and keep pace with new and emerging culinary industry trends, New England Culinary Institute (NECI) will roll-out three new specializations within its bachelor degree programs in September 2008. The three specializations – Sustainability, Wine and Beverage Studies, and Baking and Pastry.
I am proud to mention that I attended NECI back in the mid 90’s. The school offers one of the best hands on training that is available today among all the culinary schools out there. Now with the specialization in three different areas, this will make the school an even more attractive place to study.
I only wish that these programs were available when I went to school.

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David Farkas just wrote in his blog about his interview with Joe Micatrotto – the former CEO of Buca – that defrauded the company out of a lot of money. In the wake of Enron and Tyco, Micatrotto and two of his other henchmen where found guilty of embezzlement with moving money around to finance a villa in Tuscany, pay for his kid’s wedding and move around money to pay off restaurant debts.

But what gets me more about Farkas’ entry is that it seems as if Farkas was trying to paint Micatrotto in a positive light. So much of this is for press. 

My wife and I just saw American Gangster with Denzel Washington. It was a good movie and entertaining. But what I got away with when we finished the movie was that the character that Denzel Washington was playing was almost made out to be the good guy in a way. Yes, he did help out a lot of people in the Harlem neighborhood by giving out free turkeys at Thanksgiving, but he also killed a lot of people along the way. Not to mention, distributing and trafficing drugs.

Not Joe Micatrotto may not have killed anyone, but he sure did now what he was doing with Buca. How could you not? There have been some that say he was just the fall guy who took it for a few bad apples. Well, if that is the case, I am sure that he may have been one of those bad apples as well.

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