Kruse/Thorn: National food days get out of handKruse/Thorn: National food days get out of hand

Bret Thorn

Happy National Frappe Day, Nancy.

At least that’s the day it is as I write this, late on a Friday. By the time you see it, we will have observed National Fluffernutter Day and National Dessert Day, and be in the throes of National Angel Food Cake Day.

The week of Oct. 10 has been a big one for national food days. Tuesday was both National Taco Day and National Vodka Day, and Thursday was National Noodle Day.

October is National Cookie Month, National Tomato Month, National Seafood Month, National Chili Month, National Pork Month, National Pretzel Month, National Dessert Month and National Apple Month, among others.

Do you know what every day is for me? It’s National I Don’t Care What National Food Day It Is Day.

OK, some of my colleagues celebrate National Doughnut Day, but I don’t.

I have work to do, Nancy — trends to report on, chefs to interview, food to taste, drinks to drink. If I reported on every made-up food day, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.

Besides, what’s the point? Do French fries actually need a day so that we remember to eat them? (In case you do, it’s July 13.) It seems like every day is French Fry Day in America. Ditto National Hamburger Day, on May 28, at the tail end of National Hamburger Month.

I wouldn’t care — call any day whatever you want — but my email box is inundated on a daily basis by publicists who want to suggest things I might like to include in any National Caramel Custard Day roundups I’m working on. (That was Monday, which was also National Soft Taco Day, or, arguably, National Taco Day Eve).

It’s out of control, Nancy.

To be fair, some of these days actually have some heritage to them.

National Doughnut Day, the first Friday in June, honors members of the Salvation Army who served doughnuts to soldiers during the World War I. It was created in 1938 as a fundraiser for the Chicago Salvation Army.

More to the point, these days can be a hook for restaurant promotions.

Many doughnut chains gave out free doughnuts on National Doughnut Day, and coffee chains handed out free coffee on National Coffee Day.

National Coffee Day is Sept. 29, Nancy. How on earth is it not closer to National Doughnut Day? Why is there no National Coffee and Doughnut Day?

Actually, there kind of is: Last year, Krispy Kreme declared Sept. 29 to be National Coffee & Doughnut Day, and gave away both of those items.

Some restaurateurs actually use these ludicrous occasions for good.

Slapfish, a fast-casual chain based in Huntington Beach, Calif., which you might recall won NRN’s MenuMasters Trendsetter award this year, is celebrating National Seafood Month by asking WTF, or “What’s this fish?” and promoting lesser-known seafood species, such as California anchovies, longnose skate and porgy.

Chef-owner Andrew Gruel and many other seafood sustainability advocates argue that by eating seafood besides salmon, tuna and other popular species that we usually eat, we do less damage to those popular fisheries, and therefore are more gentle on the oceans as a whole.

That’s nice, but couldn’t they just as easily do such a promotion in May?

On the other hand, consumer media seems to love these holidays, and they get a decent amount of traction. Maybe, just as some people need a reason like Mother’s Day to tell their mothers that they love them, they need National Caviar Day (July 18) to remember to say it with fish roe.

What do you think, Nancy? Are these days just a bunch of ludicrous marketing ploys that clutter our lives, or are they clever marketing ploys that help boost sales?

National food days become relentless feeding frenzy

Nancy Kruse

I think the proper answer to your questions, Bret, is all of the above.

Yes, these proliferating food days are sometimes silly and, I suspect, ineffective gambits, but, yes, in the hands of the right marketer, they can also be smart strategies that pique patron interest and drive traffic.

Your very cool example from Slapfish gives the chain a convenient excuse to address larger environmental issues and introduce some new and unusual foods, both of which speak directly to the interests of the coveted Millennial cohort.

At the same time, these celebrations can indeed be something else entirely — or at least they started out as such.

They have a long and venerable history on the retail grocery side, where they originated and continue to this day. Commodity promotions like June Dairy Month, which launched in 1937, were created to keep supply and demand in balance. It happens that milk production peaks in late spring and early summer, and dairies and dairy farmers naturally looked for ways to pump all that milk through the pipeline and into the hands of consumers.

Back then, they assessed themselves one cent per pound of butterfat to support the program, and the rest is history. Many milk-producing communities continue to observe the month with parades, dairy princesses, free ice-cream cones, cow-milking contests and so on.

While I’m a little unclear as to how worthwhile campaigns like this one or like your National Doughnut Day transmogrified into the relentless feeding frenzy you describe, over time these programs have grown both larger and smaller. They’ve become larger via international food days.

The month of October, for example, plays host to World Porridge Day on the 10th, and World Tripe Day on the 24th. While both face an uphill battle with American consumers, I think the latter, which was established in 2013 by the Tripe Marketing Board, faces a particularly tough challenge. (And, yes, Bret, there really is a Tripe Marketing Board.)

On a smaller scale, there are all kinds of week-long festivities. October holds the worthwhile and long-running National School Lunch Week, initiated in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy to recognize the important role that this child-nutrition program plays in the lives of many students. Frequently disrespected and often beleaguered, the school-lunch tray is nonetheless crucial to the well-being of thousands of kids. On the other hand, October also gives us the much less essential National Kraut Sandwich Week and National Pickled Pepper Week. Not quite the same order of importance, right?

And smaller still, as you point out, are the endless, ersatz days dedicated to all manner of food and beverage, which, like, say, fluffernutter or frappes, are not important enough to command our attention for a whole week or month.

This reminds me of an article I read years ago about the strenuous efforts of the greeting-card industry to maintain the residual sales glow from big holidays like Mother’s Day with pseudo events like Grandparents Day or Sweetest Day, virtually none of which have clicked with the public. If we can’t get on board with Grandparents Day, what chance does an outlier like National Angel Food Cake Day have to capture our hearts and minds?

I suggest that we lighten up, quit kvetching and get down to the bottom line. It appears that this daily parade of so-called “celebrations” has become a fact of life. My advice to you is the same as it is to marketers: Pick and choose which, if any, offer appeal and opportunity.

And, as today is Oct. 13, I would like to be the first to wish you Happy National Yorkshire Pudding Day, and to suggest that we consider making every day National Vodka Day.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta and a regular contributor to Nation’s Restaurant News. E-mail her at [email protected]. 

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