For the Southwest Foodservice Expo, CHD Expert Releases New Texas Foodservice Data Packages Identifying Operators By Menu Type, Size, Revenue And Other Vital Data Points

Leading food service data and analytics company CHD Expert, evaluates the state of Texas and creates data packages focusing on the states largest cities and the state as a whole.

Everything is bigger in Texas, especially the BBQ and Burritos, and with the Southwest Foodservice Expo just a few weeks away, leading foodservice data and analytics company CHD Expert, releases new counts on the number of restaurants in the host state of Texas and its largest cities.

As Texas has been growing in population in recent years, this has also resulted in an increase in the number of restaurants operating within the state. During 2012, Texas had a 3.11 percent net growth of new restaurants, whereas 4,283 restaurants had a grand opening, and 2,691 closing their doors for business. In relation to the overall US landscape, Texas had the fourth largest net growth in 2012. For comparison, Connecticut had the largest net growth at 3.99 percent, and Illinois was at the bottom with a decline of 3.16 percent.

While in the Lone Star State, whether you are in the mood for a fine dining experience or a quick delivery service, with over 53,000 eating establishments, there are a lot of places in Texas to satisfy your growling belly. Home to some of the nations best BBQ, in 2012 Texas had a state wide net growth of 5.34 percent in the BBQ Menu Type, with 220 new BBQ restaurants opening over the year. Additionally, this border state has some of the nations most authentic Mexican food, and the Mexican Menu Type saw a 10.04 percent growth over 2012.

And while this abundance is a blessing for the more than 26 million residents of Texas, and tourists who visit the state, keeping tabs on these restaurants can be a daunting task for businesses who aim to sell their products and services to restaurants that operate in Texas.

CHD Expert has made the process of obtaining restaurant information much easier and has produced three unique Foodservice Data Packages, providing data and counts for restaurants in the state of Texas. The first data package focuses on the host Metro area of Dallas/Fort Worth, which has 14,262 unique operators; the second package couples Dallas/Forth Worth with the state’s two largest metropolitan areas, Houston and San Antonio for a total of 30,428 operators; and the third package identifies 53,798 operators across the entire state of Texas.

Some of the information in the data packages includes: Menu Type, Years in Business, Annual Sales, Average Check, Annual Food & Beverages Purchases and Contact Information.

“These data packages are especially valuable to tradeshow exhibitors,” stated Brad T. Bloom, Director of Sales for CHD Expert North America. “It is not cheap to exhibit at a tradeshow and it becomes vital for exhibitors to get the most out of their attendance. Foodservice manufactures and distributers use our data to market their presence at the show and drive foot traffic to their booths. These data packages focus on the state of Texas, but we have the ability to consolidate the same type of information for any state, and many international countries. With the foodservice industry being so dynamic and volatile, having the right information becomes critical to generating sales.”

To obtain more information about what is included in the Texas Data Packages or to receive pricing, please contact Brad T. Bloom at bbloom@chd-expert.com

The Southwest Foodservice Expo: Why we are looking forward to going to Texas

Much more than a tradeshow, the Southwest Foodservice Expo is the largest foodservice event of its kind in the region. With local foodservice sales projected to reach $55 billion in 2013, this foodservice expo provides an excellent opportunity to network with the decision makers of the Southwest foodservice industry, as well as check out the latest and greatest in the market.

Held in the Dallas Convention Center on June 23th and 24^th, the Southwest Foodservice Expo will host culinary showcases with the likes of chef Robert Irvine, host of Food Network’s Restaurant:Impossible and chef Tyler Stone. There will also be chef competitions, an Education Idea Center, and the opportunity to check out the most innovative products and services in the country.

One of the things that we find the most interesting about the Southwest Foodservice Expo is its Experts Forum. These one-on-one, or small group chats with some of the foodservice industry leading experts, will provide restauanteurs tips on how to make their restaurants more profitable.  Another interesting happening this year is the Northwest Wine Expo, co-located with the Expo, which will showcase a diversity of wines, trends and leading voices from the rapidly growing wine region.

And as every year, the event not to be missed during the Expo will be the Texas Restaurant Association’s President’s Gala. In the iconic celebration, the the who’s who of the Texas foodservice industry celebrates its yearly achievements and induct Texas restaurateurs into the Hall of Honor, the TRA’s most prestigious award.

For easy navigation of the Southwest Foodservice Expo, download their free app and for more details, visit their website.

National Restaurant Association Show 2013 Recap – Our Journey on Day 2

Author: Nicolas Watson

As we’ve been saying for months now, the NRA Show is one of our favorite foodservice industry events of the year. The NRA Show brings exhibitors from all over the country that come to showcase the latest and greatest in foodservice trends and innovation. Because the this show is so big, we literally feel like we are on a journey as we make our way around the exhibition floor, meeting new people and companies and saying hello to old friends and colleagues. Plus, we also had a quick run in with the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel who was busy checking out all of the excitement that the #NRAShow has to offer! (Check out our picture in the gallery below.)

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to attend this year, we wanted to share a recap of our journey through the trade show floor on Day 2. We have some great pictures and a videos that will give you a sense of the magnitude of brillance that this show brings to Chicago. But first, here is a snapshot of me, Nicolas Watson, marketing manager at CHD Expert, with the team at Cookina, high-quality non-stick cooking tools.

Cookina Company #NRAShow

One of the most impressive demonstrations that we saw today was by Blendtec. They did a demo of their blender that blends at 20,000 RPMs and to illustrate it’s strength  they took a wood rake and fed it to the blender! Watch this. It’s really something that you haven’t seen before! But, please don’t try this at home!

Lastly, here are a few snap shots from some other booths that we stopped by through out the day. Oh, and did we mention how delicious the Sweet Gordita S’More Burrito was from Maria and Ricardos? Take a look at pictures from the floor of the trade show.

Rahm Emanuel, The Mayor of Chicago

Demarle – She;s all dressed in in bakeware at the #NRA

Alex doing his thing! Ole! At the NRA Show

Sweet Gordita’s S’Mores Burrito at the #NRAShow

Mazzetta Company at the #NRAShow

Idaho Potatoes at the #NRAShow

Bridgford at the NRA Show

Lots of delicious food at the #NRAShow

Cookina Company #NRAShow

Food Truck at the NRA Show

Just in Time for The 2013 National Restaurant Association Show, CHD Expert Launches New Menu Type Segmentation For Their Foodservice Data, Web-Based Query Tool, Easy2Find

Leading food service data and analytics company CHD Expert, releases a new menu type filter allowing for more granular segmentation of restaurants by specific menu type.

Author: Nicolas Watson

Just in time for the 2013 National Restaurant Association Show, Chicago-based foodservice database, and analytics firm, CHD Expert, expands their available menu filters allowing for foodservice businesses to more narrowly target unique restaurants with their sales efforts.

As American food culture grows in popularity, themed and diverse restaurants are now opening on a regular basis. Ten years ago, few would have ever imagined dining at a Japanese Moroccan fusion restaurant or a restaurant specializing in meatballs, but now diverse ethnic menus are all the rage. While a diverse restaurant scene has been a treat for Americans’ taste buds, this presents a challenge for foodservice industry professionals, who are constantly trying to identify and pin point these relentlessly growing menu segments.

CHD Expert’s web-based query tool, Easy2FIND, provides a solution for foodservice industry professionals who need to sell and market to the ever changing restaurant landscape, and this new set of filters allows for deeper insight into a wide-range of less common menu types.

With Easy2FIND, more granular filters are now available for many emerging Asian and African menu types, including but not limited to: Malaysian, Cambodian, Pakistani, Tunisian, Lebanese, Russian, and many more. This is in addition to the already available “standard” menu types like Chinese, Barbecue, Vegetarian, Kosher, etc. Furthermore, this new segmentation capability also allows for standard menu types to be further dissected. For example, the common ‘Italian’ segment can be filtered to identify ‘pizzerias’ within the Italian segment.

“The restaurant industry is extremely competitive and complex,” said Nicolas Watson, Marketing Manager at CHD Expert. “As consumer pallets continue to evolve, restaurateurs, chefs and entrepreneurs tenaciously push the envelope to introduce exotic, unique menus. And while consumers reap the benefits, this becomes incredibly challenging and cumbersome for someone who is selling a product like Asian Chili Oil. With these new Easy2FIND filters, foodservice manufacturers and distributors now have a much deeper level of insight on their target markets, making their sales and marketing process much more efficient. We have already received some excellent feedback from our beta testing, and are very excited to roll out this tool in time for the National Restaurant Association Show.”

To schedule a demo of the Easy2FIND tool, and see if you qualify for a seven day trial, please contact Brad Bloom.

NRA Show Tips from CHD Expert

The NRA Show 2013 – the largest and most important foodservice industry showcase is getting even closer – just over two weeks away now.

In our previous post, we discussed how technology has changed the conference experience for the attendee, exhibitor, entrepreneur or food enthusiast. This week, we canvassed some opinions from some of our top CHD Expert foodservice consultants, who are NRA Show veterans, and they provided some great advice about how to make the most of your four days at the center of the food industry’s universe.

How many NRA shows has CHD Expert attended?

CHD Expert visits about 15 food service shows and conferences every year across the US and Canada. We have been attending the NRA show since 2006 and this will be our 8^th time at this event.

What was the most memorable NRA Show you have attended?

The show gets better every year and last year was our busiest yet! We had over 35 different in person meetings with prospective and current clients. There was also an excellent networking event hosted by P&G and Kelloggs at the House of Blues, where Huey Lewis and the News performed!

 Are there any exhibitors’ booths you would recommend checking out?

At previous shows Rational has done a fantastic job with a live demonstration of their products with live chefs, very fun to watch and sample. Also in years past Daymark also has had a “must-visit” booth. They have a fun staff and have had different types of competitions and games where attendees can win prizes. Food is plentiful at the NRAShow, as you would expect, and there are samples of every food you can imagine from everywhere in the world. So if all else fails, just follow your nose!  

What is the best advice for first time attendees in Chicago?

After visiting seven consecutive NRA shows we’ve had some great experiences and picked up some valuable tips to help the experience be as smooth, productive and tasty as possible!

• Plan your time – the show is very large, bigger than you would imagine so make sure you leave enough time to get around to visit all the exhibitors and events or else you’ll be disappointed that you didn’t see it all.
• Take a shuttle – Shuttles are one of the best ways to get around Chicago and only pick up at certain hotels so there are less stops than a regular service.  If you do take a cab to and from the show, try to leave before the majority of the attendees as the demand for taxis is similar to an airports – you could be waiting for over an hour!
• Don’t Eat beforehand – Why would you want to eat before visiting the biggest food industry showcase in the world? There are more samples and demonstrations here than anywhere else and there is ample opportunity to fill up at various points during the day and evening. Like the best restaurants, buzz soon gets around about the tastiest samples at various booths so make sure you take advantage while you can.
• Charge Up! – If you are bringing a laptop or smartphone to the convention then make sure it is fully charged overnight because it’s going to be a long day. Remember to bring your charger with you to take advantage of any spare outlets and top off whenever you can. Also remember to check out our tech-savvy NRAShow tips post from last week.

NRA Trade Show Tips for the Digital Age

The annual National Restaurant Association Show is the most important restaurant industry event of the year, and we are geared up and ready for the action. Every attendee or exhibitor is a potential contact or client and every connection could yield the vital conversation or referral that could make the difference to your business’s bottom line.

Conference success has and always will revolve around your personality and offering, but the conference experience itself has changed more in the past five years than the previous 20, thanks to the advent of digital and mobile technology.

While many have predicted the death of the humble business card, it is still the primary method of introduction, and the ritual of exchanging them at conferences goes on, but sometimes with a digital twist. There are many smartphone apps such as Cardmunch or Bump that allow details to be exchanged and automatically uploaded to your contact database along with email, images and weblinks and these real time updates add deeper levels of insight on your newly made contacts.

Techsavvy conference goers create specific cards especially for the event they will be traveling to. They will create a video or other fun or interesting content in advance and link them to a QR code. By placing the QR code on the business card, it now becomes a multimedia gateway that people can view using the same phone they are uploading your card details too!

You may want to start incorporating either your company’s or your personal social media addresses on your business card from now on too. If you make a good impression and people want to connect with you then they will invariably look for your Linkedin profile or Twitter handle before your website, so you should make it as easy as possible to connect to you. We do!

Another thing to consider is that Twitter has transformed the conference arena. Before, unless you were a keynote speaker, it was practically impossible to speak to a large number of attendees simultaneously, whereas now one perfectly timed tweet will get you all that attention in a moment, along with many new followers. Virtually every conference has a #hashtag attached to it so you can follow all conversations related to it.

Many presenters will upload their presentations, slides and videos to Twitter after they speak so you can actually concentrate on their words and ideas rather than note-taking. That said, the retweeted quote is the new applause and a speaker knows they are doing a good job if their knockout line is greeted with a thousands fingertaps rather than applause.  Watch out for the many plasma screens around the venue exhibitors and the NRA will use to show the live Twitter stream for the conference – a great way to get noticed and introduce yourself.

With this in mind, its good practice to pre-schedule some social media posts using the conference hashtag to appear during the conference. This will save you the job of finding material to share when you could be networking and enjoying the event!

Many of the top conferences including the NRA Show have also fully embraced the mobile future by producing specific apps just for their events.  The NRA Show’s can be found here – that contain schedules, maps, social media links and much more information that you can have instantly rather than carrying a bulky conference program pack – although it might be worth getting one as a souvenir because they will be disappearing quicker than the free food samples on offer!

We hope that we’ve outlined some new digital ways to connect with others at a trade show. If you have specific questions or want to reach out to us for more information, please feel free to do so. Email us at cathy@chd-expert.com. We hope to see you there!

CHD Expert Releases New Data Finding That Mexican Restaurants Flourish in Chicago, representing 9% of the city’s Restaurant Market

Leading foodservice data and analytics company CHD Expert, evaluates the status of the Mexican restaurant industry in their hometown of Chicago, Illinois, and draws comparisons between the Mexican restaurant scene in Chicago and some of the nation’s largest cities.

Despite being about 1,500 miles from the nearest U.S. Mexico border crossing, residents of Chicago don’t have to travel far for an authentic burrito, as some of the best Mexican food in the nation can be found in Chicago. As reported in CHD Expert’s 2012 U.S. Foodservice Operator Update, the Mexican menu type had a net increase of 4.7 percent and was the second largest growing menu type in the U.S. With the 2013 National Restaurant Association Show just one month away, Chicago-based foodservice data and analytics firm, CHD Expert, reports on the Mexican restaurant industry landscape in their home town and NRA Show host city, Chicago, Illinois.

According to CHD Expert’s Foodservice Database,CHD FIND® (Foodservice Industry National Database), Mexican restaurants represent 9 percent of the total restaurants in the city of Chicago with over 600 options to choose from. Chicago has the 4th largest number of Mexican restaurants of any city in the country. Although New York City is the leading restaurant city in the country, they have 40 percent less Mexican restaurants (375), making up only 4.2 percent of the city’s total restaurant landscape.

Houston Texas has more Mexican restaurants than any other city in the United States, followed by San Antonio and Los Angeles respectively, and these border towns understandably have a strong Mexican influence on the local cuisine. According to the 2010 US Census Data, Hispanic’s represent 14 percent of the total US population; with Houston having a Hispanic population of 31 percent, San Antonio 37 percent and Los Angeles 34 percent. Further down the list of U.S. cities with high Hispanic populations are Chicago at 23 percent and New York at 21 percent.

The Mexican menu type is the most popular ‘Latin’ menu type in Chicago, with more Mexican restaurants than all other Latin menu type restaurants combined. Other Latin restaurant types consist of Brazilian, Caribbean and other South and Central American cuisine types.

Further breaking down the numbers, 61.7 percent of Chicago’s Mexican restaurants are considered Full Service Restaurants. Full Service Restaurants have a wait staff with table service, and restaurants that fall into this category include: Family Style Dining, Casual Dining, and Upscale/Fine Dining establishments. In New York City, 69.4 percent of Mexican restaurants fall into the Full Service segment. Contrarily, 38.3 percent of Chicago’s Mexican restaurants are considered Limited Service Restaurants whereas in New York, 30.6 percent of Mexican restaurants are considered Limited Service. Limited Service Restaurants do not offer a wait staff and are made up Quick Service, Quick Casual and Delivery/Take Away.

While a plate of tacos in Chicago might be a bit more expensive than what you’d pay in Tijuana, Mexican food in Chicago is still a relatively affordable option. In Chicago, 69.7 percent of Mexican restaurants yield an average check that is less than $15. In New York City by comparison, 60 percent of Mexican restaurants have less than a $15 average check. This is due to the fact that there are a higher percentage of full service restaurants in New York which drives the average check higher. Another contributing factor is that in general New York is more expensive than Chicago. In New York City 11.7 percent of Mexican restaurants’ average checks fall into the $30-50 range, whereas in Chicago it’s only 5.8 percent.

And while affordable food is normally associated with large fast food chains, CHD Expert’s data suggests that this is not the case in Chicago. 86.9 percent of the Mexican restaurants are independently owned and fall into the Mom and Pop category, whereas big chains, which consist of companies with over 500 restaurants in operation nationwide like Taco Bell, only represent 8.2 percent of Chicago’s Mexican restaurants. By comparison, large chains in New York City represent more than 14 percent of the local Mexican restaurants.

“For those of us who live in Chicago it is not a surprise to see that Mexican Food has such a strong presence in the city” stated Alex Hernandez, Account Manager at CHD Expert North America. “Chicago is a multicultural city with a strong Latin authority and diverse culture. Famous chefs like Rick Bayless and Manuel Bañuelos, have made Chicago a top destination for Mexican food in the United States, and when you come to the city and taste these bold flavors you will certainly associate Mexican food with Chicago.”

To obtain a complete breakdown on the United States Mexican restaurant landscape, or to schedule a time to meet in Chicago during the 2013 National Restaurant Association Show please contact Brad Bloom bbloom@chd-expert.com.