Metrics are a lot more than just numbers. They’re a source of boundless insights that you can use to improve your internal business practices, but they’re also a useful tool for helping to connect vendors with the right kinds of businesses.
A perfect example of this is the rise of the ‘farm-to-table’ movement, which has captured the support of both restaurant venues and their customers alike.
If you’re a foodservice vendor that’s offering unique, homemade products, but you’re having a hard time getting your products in local farm-to-table menus, Brizo has all the tools you need to empower your business and pinpoint your brand’s path to success.
Before we jump into the importance of farm-to-table within the foodservice industry, we should discuss a bit about the movement itself.
The farm-to-table movement started way back in the 1940’s, when people began leaving farm life for more cities and losing their connections to homegrown products. This led to the rise of the processed foods market, which thrived through the 50’s and 60’s.
Eventually, people started to grow concerned about things like pesticides and preservatives in their food. Because of this, through the 70’s and 80’s, many new organizations (i.e., the California Organic Farmers, ‘Organically Grown’ in Oregon, etc.) were formed, which focused heavily on getting back to organic, fresh food products.
Once the 90’s began, consumers themselves began demanding more local fresh foods and less processed options; especially in the restaurant industry. This led to the rise of the ‘farm-to-fork’ or ‘farm-to-table’ movement.
Since then, we’ve seen this become more important year-over-year to certain demographics of consumers, who will go out of their way to support farm-to-table restaurants. So much so, we’ve seen a rise in locations that actively promote farm-to-table menus as part of their branding.
In foodservice, there are a number of different ways that brands build loyalty with their customers. Good customer service, excellent food preparation, cleanliness, and of course, through connecting with customers on an emotional level.
Showing guests that farm-to-table is important to their brand demonstrates that they share like-minded values. This is a process called building ‘brand affinity’, and it’s one of the most effective ways to establish a long-term emotional connection with customers.
Farm-to-table promotes healthy living, green food production and manufacturing, supports community businesses, as well as funnels money back into local economies. These are all benefits that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of and passionate about.
The problem for foodservice suppliers working in farm-to-fork is often that small and medium-sized vendors that produce these products are overshadowed by enterprise-level suppliers, or don’t have the guidance they need to get their products in front of the right venues.
This is where Brizo can make all the difference.
There are actually a huge variety of ways that Brizo FoodMetrics can help vendors offering these types of products, find restaurants with farm-to-table menus in their areas.
From a strictly local perspective, Brizo allows you to easily sort through all the various restaurant locations in your area, based on a number of different filters. Are you providing ingredients typically used in Greek or Mediterranean dishes? Easily narrow your search to only include those types of venues.
As a vendor in British Columbia, you would find that there are 716 different establishments in the province. Narrow that further to Vancouver, B.C., and there’s still 448 Greek and Mediterranean restaurant prospects to explore.
Are you only providing a very niche kind of product, like growing herbs or spices? Herbs and spices aren’t always harvested simultaneously, so you may want to search for specific groupings that come into season around the same time. This way, you can promote groups of products to places with farm-to-table menus.
For example, a farm growing mint and tarragon in Colorado can find 3,524 foodservice venues that use these herbs with a simple click. Would you rather focus on the independent crowd (more likely for farm-to-table restaurants)? You can easily separate the 1,877 independent locations to expedite your search.
These are just two of the hundreds of ways that Brizo can help your brand find local farm-to-table restaurants to serve.
With the growth of this movement over the last several years, there seems to be new corners of the farm-to-fork market opening up all the time. However, there are some types of vendors that are definitely prebuilt to service this niche landscape.
These are just a handful of the examples we could offer, but as you can see, many areas of foodservice have found ways to incorporate farm-to-table items in their menus.
Between narrowing the scope of your searching, as well as making it easy to filter out unwanted options near you, Brizo is taking some of the challenge and expense out of selling in the foodservice industry.
When you’re busy creating the best products possible to sell, you don’t have endless time to waste blindly researching and exploring your local foodservice market on Google.
We’ve done the research and compiled all the data that vendors have been struggling to find on their own for years. This way, you can quickly and painlessly separate the right prospects for your brand, from the seemingly endless buffet of options available across the United States and Canada.
Our intelligence platform has unrivaled depth and accuracy, so you can focus your time, energy, and money on your product and your pitch.
Ready to get fresh?
