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After mini-burgers, mini-wraps and mini-desserts, what’s the Next Big Thing in restaurant snacks? Trend spotters advise looking no farther than the center of the plate—or maybe the roasting pan.
Not that minis are going away, they stress. With snacks providing one of the few areas of sales growth in an otherwise spotty market, restaurants of all stripes have studded their menus with bite-sized options suitable for virtually any hour. Customers have responded enthusiastically to the little portions’ comparable price and guilt factor; how many calories can one slider or mini-cupcake pack?
They’ve not only embraced the samplings as a pick-me-up or indulgence during off-hours, but as way of custom-building a meal. Put two or three snacks together and you have a lunch or dinner that precisely fits your tastes, wallet and level of hunger.
Add in the portability afforded by minis—“if it can fit in a cup holder that’s a huge plus,” notes Schwan’s Food Service culinary services director Kit Kiefer—and there’s no reason for R&D chefs to holster the shrink-ray gun.
But Kiefer and other menu experts see indications that bigger things may soon be coming in the small packages. Like pot roast and potatoes.
The Certified Executive Chef and Cornell University Executive in Residence explains that snacks have become a comfortable way for consumers to sample flavors, both familiar and exotic.
On the familiar side, he says, snacks deliver a bite or two of comfort foods without the commitment to a full meal or the time needed to sit down and eat it. The snacks coming down the pipeline, he says, will likely deliver the tastes and other sensations of a full plate, but in a small, portable portion that can be consumed without a knife or fork—at a fraction of the usual calories. “I love the taste of pot roast and baked potatoes,” Kiefer says. “Maybe I’d be able to get it in some sort of wrapper or stick so I could get the taste without feeling guilty.”
The trend is already evident in Schwan’s snack line, which includes a cheeseburger egg roll and a pizza snack roll.
“We’re looking at a lot of center-of-the-plate items that can be put into a smaller, more portable, more convenient format,” explains Evan Carlson, Schwan’s senior marketing manager for innovation.
The usual customer draws—speed of service, an attractive price, a virtual lack of risk since a snack is just a few bites instead of a meal—are still there, says Kiefer. But the originality factor can justify a higher price. “Based on our research, it translates into, ‘I’m willing to spend more because there’s value there,’” he says.
For all those reasons, Kiefer adds, he expects future generations of snacks to provide a comfortable way of sampling such flavors as green tea, lemon grass, cilantro, regional American spicings, and even regional curries like India’s vindaloo and masaman.
Those tastes will likely be combined in a snack with more familiar and accessible components, like ethnic staples or classic American comfort foods. “I wouldn’t call it ‘fusion’ so much as I would ‘cross-cultural,’ an item like the Southwest egg roll being a prime example,” Kiefer says.
He also anticipates experimentation with a broader array of carriers and coatings. “People will be getting away from breads and going to more wraps or Asian-style carriers like what’s used for egg rolls,” he says.
The shift away from chewy, bread-y coatings provides an opportunity to deliver literal layers of flavor, he says. He notes, for instance, that Schwan’s has the capability of forming “balls or bites” with two or three differently flavored, complementary components.
What will remain the same, he and Carlson stress, is the ease of preparation that snacks have afforded. Because the items might be ordered at any hour of the day or night, there’s no way to batch-prepare them ahead of time, as a restaurant might with lunch options. “You can’t have your hotbox loaded up because you expect so many people to come through the door,” Carlson explains. “You’re looking for a quick turnaround.”
Nor can a snack complicate kitchen operations, since it’s fetching a lower price than, say, a premium sandwich or entrée. Not a lot of labor can go into the dish. “We’re shooting for one or two items at most that the operator would need, so they can create something unique without complications,” says Carlson. “Ideally they’d need to stock just one additional item—maybe a product of ours for dipping, for use with a dipping sauce they already stock.”
He sees the array of snacks broadening in the months to come to include choices that are baked instead of fried, or ones that address health concerns in a different fashion. He notes the greater accommodation of health concerns in new snacks hitting retail stores’ shelves, but points out that the wave has yet to hit restaurants.
“There are a lot of reasons why consumers look for snacks,” Carlson says. “Some are looking for something to tide them over between meals, some are looking for indulgence, some are looking for something cheap and fast, and some are looking with health in mind.
“There’s room to accommodate all those tastes.”
For more ideas and exciting snack options, click here, contact your Schwan’s Food Service sales representative, or call 1-800-302-7426.
