Around the Corner to Around the World by Robert Rosenberg

Author:Robert Rosenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harpercollins Leadership
Published: 2020-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

4. Strategically add complementary new products to the menu to raise same-store sales and profits.

Another big idea Sid championed was the creation of a bakery category. Up until he instituted the product management system, innovation was pretty much a hit-or-miss affair. Ideas might come from franchise owners or operational personnel. Now all ideas were funneled through the product managers, and if none were forthcoming from elsewhere you could rest assured they would have a plate full to suggest if for no other reason than to justify their existence.

Sid saw huge potential in installing an oven in our stores to supplement our fried donut line with a wide range of baked goods. He insisted that “the oven is the big new product this year, not the product we are going to bake in it. That’s only the beginning.” This was a big move for us. It required a major investment in equipment and the teaching of new production skills to our personnel. It also required us to remerchandise our scarce shelf space to accommodate baked goods. Irv Eisen, now head of R&D, began to work on developing a line of top-notch baked goods. He started out simply with just two kinds of muffins, blueberry and corn.

I traditionally relied on the technical skill of our research and development team to develop new products, but when it came to our first baked product—blueberry muffins—I made an exception. Like many Bostonians, I had a vivid memory of the delicious muffins sold at one of our two iconic department store chains, Jordan Marsh (Filenes being the other). On their top-floor dining area, the store baked and sold large muffins crowned with a sugary top and stuffed with blueberries. These muffins were well known and much loved throughout New England.

I insisted we try to replicate the Jordan Marsh blueberry muffin, but try as we might, we were never able to obtain the exact recipe. Through trial and error, we came close. Turned out that in addition to a mix rich in eggs, butter, and all-purpose flour, the secret to a great blueberry muffin was a generous portion of wild blueberries.

Wild, lowbush blueberries are grown only in Atlantic Canada and Maine. These berries have significantly more flavor than cultivated blueberries, their high-bush cousins. That was our secret. We would select only the best wild blueberries after fall harvest and flash freeze them for availability all year long. Wild blueberries contain less moisture than cultivated berries and keep their shape through the mixing process. We next experimented with what I called fruit-to-crumb ratios, tinkering endlessly in pursuit of the perfect balance. To the best of my memory, the winning number was 15 to 20 percent wild blueberries in the mix. We finished them off with a sweet, crunchy sugar topping.

Once we had an oven in each shop, Irv and his team followed up with a line of high-quality cookies. In subsequent years, we introduced croissants, and in the 1990s, bagels. These innovative baked goods along with beverage and other promotional “news” kept our same-store sales growing for decades.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.