Five Amazing Strategies To Proper Food Merchandising

There are countless ways to increase your sales as a restaurant operator. This blog website is proof of that. Every article here is after all about boosting sales and improving your services. For this article, I’ll be talking about yet another great way to increase sales – proper food merchandising – through the words of Ms. Diane Chiasson.

Here’s what Diane has to say about proper food merchandising.

“With visual merchandising, I always try to bring food to life through eye-catching food displays, where visions of freshness, color, quality and quantity are used to create a total eating experience for customers – essentially making a “feast for the eyes.” When done properly, food merchandising encompasses everything your customer feels, sees, smells and hears. It not only creates greater eye appeal but also increases the perceived value of a product, therefore achieving higher sales.”

According to Diane, stimulating all four senses – not just the taste – is essential, almost indispensable, to proper food merchandising. Here are five amazing tips from the expert herself.

1. Evaluate your workspace
Being a restaurant operator has much the same with being a painter: you need to evaluate your workspace, or canvas, before you begin any type of project. Take into consideration the walls, floor and ceiling, and how they affect the traffic flow and interior lighting throughout the store.

2. Choose appropriate themes and colors
It’s decision time. You need to create a display with a theme, a special promotion or a message—something, a layout that’s easy to identify and connect with your target customers. This message is important and should not be overshadowed by excessive decorating. Diane says,

“When you decide on what props, displays, food items and decorations you want to use, always choose items that are vibrant in color and texture, are eye-appealing and mouth-watering, and convey freshness, quality and quantity.”

3. Use relevant props and displays
Take a good look around the kitchen and your operations to see if there are any items you can use for display. For example, if you operate a restaurant that serves pizza and pasta, you can use cutting boards, large flour sacks, rolling pins, the chef’s top hat, etc. for display around the dining area. All these promote a sense of “freshness” that customers love.

4. Fire up the senses
This one is so important that it deserves repeating. Stimulating all five senses is the winning formula in running a successful food business. What your customers smell, hear, see and touch is just as important as the taste of the food on their table.

5. Make use of food sampling
Food sampling works both ways. It’s a cost-effective way to give customers a taste of what your menu is like, and it also encourages customer feedback. Food sampling is one of the most inexpensive means of data gathering and food advertising. Diane has this to say about the practice of food sampling,

“I have applied the sampling technique in several different types of foodservice operations, and have always experienced great success from it. But be sure to use only attractive, eye-appealing and well-identified fresh food items to sample.”

Diane Chiasson is an expert in the food and retail industry. She’s been in the industry for more than 25 years.

Diane is the first foodservice merchandising specialist in North America and currently the only one working in Canada. Her experiences on running food service operations range from small restaurants run by families and independent operators, to large food chain franchises and operations, even hospital and university cafeterias, supermarkets and convenience stores, casinos, hotels, etc.

She is currently the president of her own firm, Chiasson Consultants Inc. in Toronto. She’s been there and done everything!

Check back on us this week for more food merchandising tips.

Diane Chiasson, FCSI, president of Chiasson Consultants Inc., has been helping foodservice, hospitality and retail operators increase sales for over 25 years. She provides innovative food and retail merchandising programs, interior design, marketing and promotional campaigns, and much more. Contact her at 416-926-1338, toll-free at 1-888-926-6655 or chiasson@chiassonconsultants.com, or visit www.chiassonconsultants.com