CHD Expert Adds New Data Segments, Providing Foodservice Professionals With Intelligence On Restaurants That Have Just Opened And Those With Plans To Open In The Future

Chicago, Illinois (PRWEB) February 27, 2014

New data segmentation now allows CHD Expert’s customers to identify restaurants that have been open for less than 30 days, and those restaurants that have yet to open their doors to guests.

CHD Expert, the Chicago-based foodservice database and analytics firm is announcing the expansion of their operator filter suite in two new and exciting areas; businesses that have just recently opened, and those who have plans to open in the near future. These two new segments will provide critical insight to companies that sell to restaurants, as they will be able to use the data to contact decision makers in the critical process of outfitting their establishments and looking to build lasting relationships with food suppliers. The two segments will be available in March 2014.

Currently, CHD Expert’s Foodservice Industry Database (FIND) offers data at an industry-leading level of accuracy on over six million global operators, providing contact information that can be segmented and filtered by various criteria. The two new segments will be joining an already robust list of available criteria that includes location, units, menu type, revenue, average check, number of employees, and many other pertinent details.

This March, CHD Expert customers in select USA markets will be able to quickly identify two types of restaurants and other foodservice kitchens not previously possible – those with recently opened doors, and those who are scheduled to open in the near future. The segments will be broken down into two specific areas: New Business and Pre-Open. These two new filter options will join all the current age-related filters, which identify restaurants that have been open for less than one year, one to two years, two to five years, and five plus years.

The New Business segment will classify operators who have opened within the past 30 days. Imagine the possibilities this information can provide to CHD Expert customers, who will now be able to identify recently opened restaurants in their selected geography. Companies who focus on selling advertising, POS systems, or other digital services will be able to use this data to target prospects that have yet to solidify these necessary relationships, or who are ready to enhance their current operations. Specialty providers can use this data to target and sell their products to restaurants that may not have an identified provider at open, or after an initial experience with one, now want to change quickly.

The Pre-Open segment will recognize operators who have plans to open in the near future. This information will be highly desirable for any foodservice distributor or manufacturer who sells to restaurants or commercial kitchens. Vendors will now be able to strategically offer their goods to restaurants that are in the process of purchasing equipment and food products to outfit their establishment.

“Foodservice distributors, equipment manufacturers, and food manufactures have been requesting pre opening data for years,” said Brad Bloom, Director of Sales at CHD Expert North America. “Being able to connect with a restaurant or foodservice establishments while they are outfitting their kitchen and looking for suppliers while menu planning is the Holy Grail for sales professionals who sell to the foodservice industry. We now have this information available for our customers, and we are excited to see how this data positively affects their sales results.”

To learn more about CHD Expert’s foodservice database, or to learn more about CHD Expert’s latest restaurant data segments, please click the button below:

How The Foodservice Industry Is Celebrating Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is today, and this is one of CHD Expert’s favorite holidays. Valentine’s Day not only brings loved ones together to celebrate their relationships, but it is also the time of year when foodservice brands get to run creative promotions to bring in customers who are looking to celebrate the holiday.

Here are three promotions that caught our eye this week (Feb 10 – Feb 14):

Copyright: The Wall Street Journal 

Fourth Annual Qdoba Mexican Grill(R) Valentine’s Day Promotion Gets a Spicy Twist with Queso for a Kiss

On Valentine’s Day, Qdoba will bring back its annual buy one, get one free promotion, as it encourages guests to share a kiss with someone and get a free entrée with the purchase of a Queso entrée.

“Valentine’s Day is all about sharing love and happiness with those around us–friends, families, or even strangers–which is part of the reason why we love bringing back this promotion and sharing this day with our guests,” said David Craven, Vice President of Marketing Communications at Qdoba. “With the launch of two new Quesos right before Valentine’s Day, Queso for a Kiss is a great opportunity to let our guests share the flavors they love with their loved ones, while having the opportunity to try something new.”

To read the full story, click here.

Our Thoughts: Valentine’s Day is all about love and what better way to share that love than with a kiss and a free entrée. We expect to see people waiting in line to take advantage of this Valentine’s Day offer, especially with the release of Qdoba’s two new Queso flavors: Queso Diablo and Queso Verde.

Copyright: Restaurant News 

Pop the Question at Fazoli’s Valentine’s Day

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Fazoli’s restaurant is offering couples who get engaged on location, free spaghetti for a year. How great is that? The lucky couple will also be entered to win $500 worth of catering by Fazoli’s for their wedding reception, rehearsal dinner or shower.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the number of couples who got engaged at Fazoli’s last year,” said Cathy Hull, Fazoli’s Chief Marketing Officer. “This year, with the chance to have the wedding catered by Fazoli’s, we anticipate even more couples to make Fazoli’s the place to pop the question.”

To read the full story, click here.

Our Thoughts: Romance and Italian cuisine go hand-in-hand so what better way to propose than over a romantic Italian dinner? Think about the famous scene from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. On top of that, each couple will receive free food for a year. We call that a win-win.

Copyright: Market Watch 

Say “I Do” at DQ®

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, and the launch of its new Red Velvet Blizzard®, Dairy Queen is inviting all fans to get married and celebrate with a reception at their local DQ® restaurant on Valentine’s Day.

“Planning a wedding can be stressful, so this Valentine’s Day, we want to alleviate some of that stress by inviting our fans to celebrate their big day with the Dairy Queen brand,” said Barry Westrum, executive vice president of Marketing for American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ). “Not only are participating locations offering the venue where the happy couple can say their vows, but we’ll also provide the food for the reception and a signature Red Velvet Blizzard Cake at the restaurant. What better way to start off a sweet marriage than then to do it at a DQ restaurant?”

To read the full story, click here.

Our Thoughts: This is a generous idea by Dairy Queen. Planning a wedding can be stressful (and expensive). This is a great way to bring in more customers and create brand advocates. Plus, you’ll get a free Signature Red Velvet Blizzard Cake as part of the Valentine’s Day promotion.

We hope you enjoyed these stories and don’t forget to check back next Friday to get a roundup of the week’s biggest restaurant and foodservice news! We love to hear from our readers, so please share your thoughts, views, and opinions on these Valentine’s Day promotions in the comment section.

Thank you and have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Smart Business Magazine’s Review of Chicago’s Restaurant Landscape

At CHD Expert, we not only provide data to our clients, but sometimes we get the change to work with magazines and other news outlets. Most recently, we got the chance to work with Mark Scott, Senior Associate Editor at Smart Business Magazine  and provided him with restaurant data for the city of Chicago. In this month’s edition of Uniquely Chicago, Mark writes about how Chicago shouldn’t only be recognized for it’s pizza, but for it’s diverse food scene as well. Click the image of the article below to read the full story and to learn about the restaurant landscape in Chicago.

Uniquely Chicago – Restaurants, A Slice of Life

If you are a journalist looking for restaurant or foodservice data, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d be happy to help you complete your story or provide you with data on the foodservice or restaurant industry. Email us at cathy@chd-expert.com.

CHD Expert Assesses the 2014 US Healthcare Foodservice Industry Market Landscape

Due to Obamacare the healthcare industry in 2014 is changing dramatically, and CHD Expert evaluates the status of the foodservice industry within our nations hospitals and healthcare facilities.

Many of the Obamacare reforms officially kicked in on January 1, 2014, which means changes for the healthcare industry.

For companies trying to capitalize on the increased spending by hospitals looking to upgrade their foodservice facilities and services, CHD Expert provides an overview of the current foodservice healthcare market landscape, highlighting opportunities for businesses that cater to the healthcare industry.

A growing number of hospitals across the United States have begun to invest more in their foodservice operations in order to create a friendly, hotel-like experience, complete with room service, cafeterias, gardens, and local produce. Foodservice helps the overall feel of a hospital, and with Obamacare in action, more health care facilities will look to improve their overall experience as it could assist in receiving funds.

According to CHD Expert’s data, there are over 54,000 healthcare facilities in the United States. This includes hospitals, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, assisted or senior living centers, and other healthcare establishments. In addition to examining market size, CHD Expert’s data provides details around facility locations, and determines that healthcare facilities fall primarily within major cities and larger metropolitan areas.

CHD Experts data breaks down public and privately owned facilities and indicates that public institutions dominate the current healthcare industry. Approximately 86 percent of healthcare facilities are publicly operated. Comparatively, about 13 percent of the market is categorized as private institutions.

Of over 3,700 US hospitals, only 38 percent have self-operated foodservice operations. The majority of hospitals are managed by Foodservice Management Companies, the “big three” consisting of Sodexo, Aramark and Compass. Sodexo holds a majority of the market share with 27 percent of the Hospital market and 44 percent of the total managed hospitals.

Over 75 percent of hospitals also participate with a GPO (Group Purchasing Organization) to receive product discounts on food purchases. The GPOs with the highest market share of hospital participation are Premier, VHA and HPG. Of all of these participating hospitals, 46 percent have 100-500 beds. On the opposite side, over 30 percent have only 1-50 beds representing the smaller hospital market.

CHD Expert also reports that approximately 44.1 percent of all healthcare providers have between 100 to 500 beds. In terms of hospital size based on the number of beds, New York, California, and Pennsylvania all have at least one healthcare facility with more than 1,000 beds. The data also reveals that 40.3 percent of the healthcare facilities serve between 51 to 100 meals on a daily basis. On a larger scale, the total number of patients going through all US hospitals on an average day totals over 643,000.

Other filters CHD Expert have available to dissect the data include: Number of Meals Served Per Day and Number of Employees. There are also contacts available for each Hospital to include titles of, Purchasing, Foodservice Director and Chefs where available.

“Obamacare is influencing how a lot of businesses are structured, and this is certainly the case in the healthcare industry,” stated Catherine Kearns, General Manager for CHD Expert North America. “The US has some of the world’s most modern hospitals but since many Americans struggle with obesity, hospitals are reevaluating how they feed hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis. This is highly coveted information for foodservice providers who cater their products or services to hospitals and other healthcare facilities. By understanding the numbers behind hospitals and healthcare facilities, providers can better focus their sales efforts and position themselves to acquire purchase orders from these healthcare facilities. Changes in healthcare are happening, and if your organization does business with healthcare facilities, this information could be critical to helping you land new accounts.”

To obtain more information about CHD Expert’s findings, or with general questions about education foodservice data, please contact Catherine Kearns – cathy(at)chd-expert(dot)com

About CHD North America

CHD Expert is the global leader in collecting, managing and analyzing data for the Away-from-Home Global Foodservice Market. For more than 10 years CHD Expert has been dedicated to supporting Foodservice channel members in providing a global vision and an in-depth understanding of the industry (in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific).

Our objective is to support food service providers in their sales and marketing strategies by providing the most comprehensive and accurate foodservice census, housing operator intelligence for more than 5 million operators worldwide. For additional information, please visit http://www.chd-expert.com or call 1-888-CHD-0154.