What can menus tell us, other than whats on the menu?

I decided to choose to respond to Renee Chu’s blog about food and it turned out to be very interesting. She looked at how geographic location and cultural differences impact the types of food restaurants provide. Grocery stores and restaurants must gain insights from the people in their community about their food preferences. The vast difference in the selection at restaurants signifies the importance of catering to the needs of your customers. It is an unmistakable truth that humans don’t like change. Thus, if they saw something strange in their grocery store, they probably will not buy it (unless they are an adventurous foodie who watches the Food channel a lot). If stores and restaurants don’t cater to the needs of their local consumers, they will definitely be carrying a large inventory of unsold foods.
Reading through Renee's blog, I found her discussion of the different foods carried in Asian McDonald’s extremely interesting. I had no idea they would use green tea flavored ice cream in their McFlurry’s. The taste buds of Asians must be tremendously different than mine because green tea ice cream and Oreos sounds pretty gross to me. But this just shows the extreme differences in preferences between locations and cultures. Even though McDonald’s is an American brand, it must have to go through extensive market research to gain insights about the people in the thousands of locations it places its franchise. I recently traveled to Italy and the McDonald’s there offered a caprese salad on their menu. I would have never expected that healthy dish on a McDonald’s menu, but I guess Italians are so used to having this offered at every restaurant that they would be upset if it wasn’t offered at McDonald’s.
Renee looked at the differences in food in three different locations—Texas, Chicago, Asia, and California. These locations are all very far apart and thus obviously the preferences of their inhabitants are different. However, I have found that even in the same city, the types of food changes based on the neighborhood they are in. For example, I’m from Houston which is an incredibly diverse city. In an upper class neighborhood, the grocery stores will have a large section of organic items. This is because the consumers of the food in these groceries stories lead a more luxurious life where they have time to focus on things other than paying the rent and feeding their children. They have time to read the newspaper and other articles to learn about the benefits of organic food. They are also more conscious of their health, so they will be more inclined to try to reap these benefits. And of course, these consumers have the money to pay the premium prices of organic food. But just a mile down the street from this fancy Houston neighborhood, you can find grocery stores in, for example, a Hispanic part of town that sell almost no organic food. This is because these neighborhoods are generally lower income areas so they can’t afford the premium prices. It is interesting to go into these groceries because you can learn so much about the different culture foods. For example, on Thanksgiving the HEB carries barely any turkeys. This is because HEB has discovered that having turkey on Thanksgiving is not a very popular tradition for the Hispanic community. Instead, you will find a whole freezer of pig’s heads which the people use to make Baracoa for the occasion.
Also, driving home from the beach this weekend, I started thinking about how Dairy Queen is only in small towns. There seemed to be a Dairy Queen “Texas Stop Sign” in every single small town we drove through. I was thinking to myself that they should really put a Dairy Queen in the city because I absolutely love their Blizzards (even though I think they are probably the worst thing for you ever). But after pulling over and indulging in a tasty Blizzard and reading the menu, I realized why Dairy Queen’s aren’t in the city. From looking at the items on their menu, it is clear that their target demographic is country folk. There is fried catfish, steak fingers, and chicken fried steak sandwiches. These are all very down-home cookin’ type of meals. Also, the names of the items on the menu are clearly targeted towards country people. For example, there is a hamburger on the menu called the “Belt Buster”. This name wouldn’t fly in the city where everyone is so concerned with their weight. Even people who frequently go to fast food restaurants and thus probably aren’t super fit would probably stray away from a burger called this. The name “Belt Buster” reminds you of how many calories you really are consuming when eating the burger. However, DQ does quite well so it must have figured out through research they people in small towns are as concerned with the diet frenzy.