123Foodies and M+K Laux Launch Super Dairy Blends

M+K Laux along with HotOperator® and 123Foodies in Long Island, New York working to launch shelf stable super dairy blends.

Reuben and Jasmine BenJehuda, co-owners of 123Foodies™ brand of shelf-stable, super dairy blends in Long Island, NY have come together with M+K Laux to introduce this revolutionary new product exclusively to the foodservice industry. Together, M+K Laux along with 123Foodies Launch Super Dairy Blends.

Reuben and Jasmine choose M+K Laux because of HotOperator®

Reuben and Jasmine decided to work with M+K Laux and HotOperator because of their extensive experience in the food industry. They have worked in both foodservice and retail and have been involved with a large number of brands including Hershey’s Foodservice, Anchor Food Products, Otis Spunkmeyer, General Mills Foodservice among others, along with restaurants operators in every state in the United States including Alaska and Hawaii; along with Canada, Mexico, Australia and the UK.

Looking for high quality, shelf stable gelato

123Foodies is the idea of the BenJehuda’s who were looking for a better way to make a high quality gelato for their ice cream parlor chain Popbar. Popbar is a traditional Italian gelateria with a twist of modern dessert fun. Specializing in all-natural, handcrafted gelato on a stick, their menu includes 60+ flavors, and endless ways to customize. Their tagline is “choose a pop, dip it, top it and enjoy!”

Looking for a way to save freezer space while not jeopardizing flavor and quality, Reuben and Jasmine came up with 123Foodies Super Dairy Blend. These speed-scratch blends are perfect for today’s hottest (and frozen) foodservice menu trends. The flavor is rich, smooth, creamy and delicious. Adding Super Dairy Blends to your favorite offerings will make your menu items more unique and desirable. It’s an easy way to increase the value of your best sellers, and increase profits to your business.

Add Super Dairy to Your Restaurant!

If you have a soft serve machine, or an ice cream maker, or make mocktails and cocktails, this is a product you are going to want to try. To find out more about this great new product, reach out to 123Foodies here.

M+K Laux and HotOperator offer foodservice marketing campaigns for clients looking for rapid growth. According to a managing partner: “The best comment anyone has ever made about our business is that everything we do offers progress towards growth. That’s why 123Foodies came to us, and that’s what we’re delivering.”

Contact M+K Laux to build a better brand!

To learn more, contact Mark@HotOperator.com, or visit their websites: HotOperator.com or Laux.com

The post 123Foodies along with M+K Laux Launch Super Dairy Blends appeared first on Laux.

See if you agree?

According to a recent study in Forbes, these are the top points of interest for clients looking for marketing agency representation. See if you agree.

1. An understanding of your business – and your industry.

It’s not enough to know the business specifically, most clients are looking for experts in their market. For this reason, LAUX focused on the food industry. We’ve been working with food since the 1980’s. We may just know as much about the food business as anyone in the industry (maybe even you). 

2. Media strategy.

Between social media and classic marketing, most businesses see the media industry as a swamp where their money goes to die. LAUX has a map and can bring guidance to your journey through social and classic media. We also know how to negotiate to get the most ‘merchandising’ available for your business.

3. Better creativity.

This can be subjective. But it’s also objective in that the creative needs to produce results. The content must deliver more engagements. The creative must grab your attention and create a moment of happiness and a reason to buy. The call to action needs to be subtle, but effective.

4. More consumer insights.

What’s on your mind and what’s on your customer’s mind may not be in alignment. What we do is help you think like your guest, end user, and consumer. This requires ‘thinking through’ your distribution system to the consumer. The best part is, we are very good at getting inside your consumer’s heads and connecting with them in a positive way.

5. Communicate what you’re best at.

Back in the day,  (maybe before you were born), we called that the unique selling proposition. This is your point of difference. The thing that makes you stand out from the competition. We’re experts at uncovering those points and making them important to your customers. We’re also experts at knowing which points to leave behind.

6. Get more results with less budget.

Making each dollar spent bringing better results is always important. ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) is essential to the growth of any business. You would never spend a dime if you thought that money was being wasted. The average ROAS is about 4 to 1, but there are ways to get a much higher return. Mark Twain put it best when he said: “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

7. Understanding the power of your brand.

Your brand is your personality. It’s the halo around your products and services. Your brand needs to be nurtured, protected, and expressed properly. This may be, more than anything, the most important part of any marketing agency/client relationship. Pick the wrong group, and they mess up your brand, it can take years to correct (if it can be done at all). At the very least you want to work with brand experts who know enough not to lose sight of your brand personality.

Does any of that interest you?

Working with us opens up a dialog over time and we have a lot of everience with the food industry. We can connect on all 7 of the most important things you want in a marketing partner.

Looking for help? Contact LAUX here. Scroll to the bottom of the page and fill out the form.

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Just yesterday I was talking to a client about a billboard for his restaurant. He wanted to know if we had ever done the creative for billboards. We have, lots of times, so I dug through our portfolio for a few to share with him. Here are some cool billboard designs from M+K LAUX.

Bull Feathers Lakeside Grill

This was for an introduction of the restaurant. They had not been able to get passing traffic to try them, so we decided to do something that would capture ‘mom and dad’ and make any kids in the car giggle.

Baldino’s Giant Jersey Subs

We worked with Baldino’s for years until they sold the business. These billboards were designed to talk to the local community in a way that would attract their attention, and talk in their language. Most of the local people thought that Baldino was a person, which is wasn’t, but we advised to let them think that. It gave them a connection that we could make into a local legend.

Pine Mountain Grill

‘Praise the Lord and pass the gravy’ was the tagline we used for this family style restaurant. Local to Kentucky, our first thought was they may not like our ‘spiritual’ approach. Instead they loved it, and so did the local community who make a lot of comments. Many of the local community started saying it to their servers.

Napoli’s Italian Restaurant

This is the client who called recently looking for a new billboard. He wanted a very conservative approach, and wanted to let people know that he offers ‘The Best Italian Cuisine’, which is what we did for him.

Connie’s Pizza

These were pitch layouts we offered Connie’s when we were developing their menu a while back. I remember the Marketing Director told the VP of marketing in our meeting: “You’d be a complete fool not to run these.”

We are particularly fond of the line: “Connie’s Always has one in the oven.”

Let us know your thoughts! And if you’re looking for help with your foodservice marketing communications, reach out to M+K LAUX here! We’d love to help if we can. Because if you sell food, we can help you introduce your food to more people.

The post Cool Billboard Designs: M+K LAUX appeared first on Laux.

Shouldn’t The Holidays Be Busier For Restaurants?

How to grow a restaurant business during the holidays and a pandemic

Talking to a long-time client yesterday and he said that the last three weeks have been brutal for his business. Then I got a call a few moments later from another client saying that his business suddenly fell off a cliff. So I texted several other clients and got the same response: the month of December should be busy, but the opposite is happening.

Part of the problem is the stimulus money has run dry, so consumers are feeling the pinch of the lack of money. Sadly, one of the first industries to be hit by any financial crisis is the restaurant business.

Here is some of the advice I’m giving my clients. See if it might help your restaurant survive until sometime next year.

Independent Restaurant Current Situation

Volumes are lower for most restaurants. Unless you have a drive through service, you’re going to struggle a little. Curbside pick up is just not the same as drive thru. But you do have an advantage, as consumers are looking for home meal replacements that offer something special. These are comfort foods that offer something that a consumer would not make at home.

Old stand by items will drive your sales. These are the star items on your menu that your followers will love more than anything else, and are willing to take the time to pick them up. If you have not done a Menu Matrix in a while, now is the time to have it done. You need to know how your foods have shifted over the last several months.

Trim Your Menu Now

A smaller menu will help. Bring focus to the items that have a good return on investment and that your best customers like most. Make sure anything you sell will travel well. Most of your business will be delivery or carryout, so make sure you have tested those items before promoting them. That means cooking them up and driving around with them in your car for half an hour and then seeing how good they are.

Set Up Delivery

Yes, it’s expensive. But it is essential. Take a price increase on the items you sell for delivery and do your best to make it work. Most of our restaurant clients report that the 3rd party delivery companies take between 19% and up to 30%, so you will have to make sure your products can still bring a profit. Unlike larger chain restaurants, you can’t negotiate the same deal they get. But my guess is, you have a better product and local followers that they will never get. Every restaurant operator I’ve talked to who had added delivery has seen a very solid increase in volume. At times like these, you need to find a way to make this work.

Packaging Fried Foods For Travel

French fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, and other fried items do not travel well in a closed container. When you put your fries in a styrofoam container they steam. When fried foods steam, they get soggy, and taste stale. The best way to package anything fried is in an open, paper cup in a paper bag. And be generous, especially with French fries. Take direction from Five Guys. Put the fries in a paper cup and then dump in an extra fist full so the bag has an overflow of fries. Your guests will be pleasantly surprised and love you for it.

Your Brand May Be More Powerful Than You Think

Your guests may think more highly of your business that you give them credit for. But you may not be top of mind at the moment. So, before you decide to add a new brand or franchise something as a ghost kitchen, think about promoting your own brand more aggressively. Spend some real money on social advertising and get some outside help with your social media creative.

Don’t abandon the work you’ve done over the years too quickly. Instead, put energy behind your brand and get in front of your customers.

Get Online Ordering

If you already have online ordering, good for you. If not, get it done, now. The old fashioned process of having people call to order won’t be back anytime soon, if ever. Yes, it’s costly, but it is the only way to keep cash flowing. Take a small price bump to cover the extra costs and get it done as soon as you can.

Here is a list of the top ten online ordering systems. But your first step should be to contact your POS provider and ask them if they have a system you can add to your current program. Most online ordering systems require you to use their POS, or use their credit card processing, and you need to be careful that you’re not putting your business in jeopardy by being over charged.

1.MenuDrive

2.ToastPOS

3.ChowNow

4.Upserve

5.Square POS

6.Restolabs

7.CAKE

8.iMenu360

9.GloriaFood

10.Ordering.co

Be Creative With Drive-By Pickup

For most restaurant operators that do not have a drive thru, getting a drive thru is nearly impossible. Many don’t have a way to add that. Instead, develop a more sophisticated way to do drive-by, drive around or toss-n-go service. Make it a system, make it sound cute and make sure the people delivering the food to your guests are well dressed, have a mask on, and are wearing gloves.

You may not be able to get the volume that the local McDonald’s is enjoying at the moment, but you can increase your business if you promote a system for allowing your guests to pick up their food quickly and move on with their lives.

Sell Out Of Your Fridge or Freezer

We have a number of clients who are doing well with a take and bake, or home meal replacements. This can be a half pan of lasagna, meatloaf with sides, broasted chicken or anything else that can heat up in the microwave at home. Be creative, though. Don’t just sell meatloaf, but make it interesting. Make it a cheese stuffed meatloaf with a red onion and citrus brown gravy, honey glazed carrots and whipped potatoes.

Most important, whatever you put on the home meal replacement menu, make sure it is something that you would not make at home.

Get Someone To Talk To

It can be lonely owning a restaurant business in a troubling time. What helps is to have someone you trust you can talk to who can offer an objective opinion. This is an emotional time for many restaurant operators, and it can help to have a friendly voice who talks to a lot of people in the industry. If you want to talk, click the link and set up a consultation. Mark will listen, offer advice, and if nothing else, make you feel a little better.

The Mark & Kelly Show

Mark and Kelly Laux are a creative team specializing in food. They have been working together long enough to be able to finish each other’s sentences. They have experience with every aspect of the foodservice industry. From food manufacturing to distribution to restaurants to consumers, their experience and creativity will help you grow your business. Put simply: if you sell food on planet earth, they can help. Reach out here. Or through HotOperator here.

The post Shouldn’t The Holidays Be Busier For Restaurants? appeared first on Laux.

In the early 2000’s I was at a National Restaurant Association show in Chicago attending a panel discussion. There were a dozen or so experts from the industry in chairs on a stage bantering ideas back and forth about how to save money on staff, food, rent and anything else they could think of. As I watched the discussion I couldn’t help but think that our industry was putting itself into a cage that had no exit. The entire mindset was on trying to save money to become more profitable.

I raised my hand and asked the group: “How do I get more for my burger?”

There were blank faces and a few, uneasy giggles from the panel. I asked further: “You have all been sitting here talking about how to lower food costs and save on dish soap, but you can’t ‘save’ your way to success in the food industry. So, how do I get more for my burger while making my customers keep buying it and telling their friends how good it is? How do I get more for my burger?”

The answer came from the panel moderator who said, and I quote: “Okay, moving on.”

Foodservice has nearly always been a one legged stool.

I’m not saying spending time thinking about how to save money in the restaurant business isn’t important. But I am saying it is only one leg of a four legged stool. Yes, save money if you can. But never at the risk of food quality. Make deals on staples. But spend more time on marketing. While you are counting your pennies, look for ways to stay top of mind with your potential customers and get more dollars to the bank.

Here are the four legs, in case you were wondering:

1. Cost of goods – yes, this is essential, but not by itself
2. Consistent quality – maybe more important than cost of goods
3. Brand connection – there must be an emotional attachment through your brand
4. Brain pegs – basically, when I say burger, what brand comes to mind first? That’s a brain peg

It’s not just a burger, either. It’s everything. Coronavirus is not going away magically. It will be here for a very long time. With this virus will come a lot of worry and safety issues with regard to public gatherings. The foodservice industry is going to need to help guests feel safe, fed and entertained in ways that have not yet been imagined. At the moment, foodservice operators are trying to get back to the way things were. But that simply is not an option. The idea of a large group of people shoulder to shoulder talking and shouting at a TV and crowds over capacity simply isn’t going to happen safely any time soon. Maybe not ever.

Moving forward, the foodservice industry will need to rethink how they market their businesses. The foods they sell and the guests they serve will need to be reimagined. And as an industry we will all need to start asking the questions I asked at the NRA show in Chicago decades ago about in earnest: How do I get more for my food? How do I serve a smaller crowd, pay my staff a proper wage and still make a profit worthy of my efforts?

The post Was Foodservice Ever That Great? appeared first on Laux.