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:

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.

Foodservice Brands Securing Loyalty on College Campuses

Millennial and Gen Z customers are targeted demographics in the foodservice industry. They are all anyone in the foodservice can talk about and who can blame them. Brands want customers who will continue to buy from them, not once or twice, but for as long as the customer lives.

Although there is no exact start and end age for Millennials, most can agree that it’s somewhere between the ages of 20 and 35. One thing that experts can agree on is the fact that this demographic is, and will continue to direct food trends for quick-service brands, which means, new product development and new promotional strategies.

Some fast-food operators sit back and let Millennial and Gen Z customers find their product through marketing. Meanwhile, others see it as an opportunity and are being more aggressive, establishing locations in the center of college campuses to secure brand affinity amongst students.

For the companies that take the initiative to position themselves in college and universities, it gives them the advantage of increasing their brand awareness in front of thousands of individuals who are looking to experience new things.

For example, Moe’s Southwest Grill has 17 operating college-campus locations in the US. Positioning their restaurants on these campuses allows their brand to be exposed by thousands of potential customers between the ages of 18-21. As these customers go back home or move to other areas, hopefully that following will continue.

The connection is not only strategic but also emotional. Customers associate brands with personal experiences and that’s what college is about. Having a place on campus and becoming a notable part of your customer’s life builds a strong connection with them.

“I know with my college experience, there were a couple food and beverage places that are near and dear to my heart because of my experience in college,” says Charles Watson, vice president of franchise development for Tropical Smoothie Café, which has six college locations. “The ability to get a lot of brand affinity by being on the campus and being in that special part of someone’s life.”

In real-estate, there is a coined phrase: “location, location, location.” CHD Expert can deliver the most up-to-date location information to help restaurants determined the right college or university. With the most accurate foodservice data on over 5,000 colleges and universities in the US, CHD Expert can provide details and counts around schools in a specific area, enrollment size, ownership type (public/private), and contact details.

Whether you’re a business that wants data on all private colleges with less than 10,000 students in a 25-mile radius or a public universities with over 20,000 students in a 50-mile radius, CHD Expert can provide you with that data. CHD Expert can even break down the campus area to provide you with information as to where competitors are located and the type of cuisine offered.

If a quick-service restaurant, whether branded or proprietary, is trying to expand into the College & University market, CHD Expert can help you make more intelligent business decisions. If you would like more information on how to access CHD Expert’s databases, please contact Catherine Kearns via email at cathy@chd-expert.com or call (312) 768-6916.

CHD Expert Releases New Product, Restaurant Chain Locator, Enabling Key Decision Makers To Visualize The Foodservice Market Landscape At The Click Of A Button

CHD Expert, debuts their newest foodservice marketing intelligence tool, Restaurant Chain Locator, helping food service businesses find, track, and footprint chain restaurants across the United States.

Chicago-based foodservice database, marketing, and analytics firm, CHD Expert unveils its latest innovation in foodservice data, The Restaurant Chain Locator. The new Restaurant Chain Locator tool is part of CHD Expert’s interactive online database platform that provides restaurant chains and foodservice providers with new ways to evaluate the foodservice market landscape. This tool identifies the chain operator landscape and density, and can postulate the data onto specific geographic maps, provide aggregated counts, graphs and other business intelligence around the chain and independent operators. The Restaurant Chain Locator has the ability to overlay current U.S. Census bureau information to further evaluate decisions in comparison with other geo-specific key indicators.

According to the latest figures from CHD Expert’s foodservice database, there are over 227,000 total chain restaurants located in the United States. These 227,000 chain restaurants consist of more than 1,900 unique restaurant brands. Subway leads the way with over 25,000 locations across the United States. McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and Burger King round out the top 5 most prevalent U.S. restaurant chains. Chain restaurants are defined as restaurants with more than nine units in operation throughout the US. See Figure 1 for the chain restaurant density heat map by zip code.

Data indicates that chains are more heavily located in major cities, with some zip codes containing more than 55+ different chain restaurants. On the contrary, there are zip codes that contain two chain restaurants or less. Some restaurant chains and foodservice providers might see low density areas as a growth opportunity, while others may want to focus on the more heavily populated zip codes. This depends on the businesses’ strategy.

Executives who are looking to expand or consolidate their restaurants’ locations can use Restaurant Chain Locator to evaluate the market landscape and make strategic decisions. This tool allows restaurant chains to visualize their locations and the footprint of operators around each of their units for competitive intelligence as well as new location placement strategy.

Restaurant Chain Locator features include the ability to: locate competitor establishments, visualize density of independents and chains locations within a given market or segment, view census demographics, and map out the results of their selection. With all the intelligence available in the database, a restaurant chain can now view footprints by segment, menu type, annual sales, #employees and average check, giving them more intelligence around their competitors in any given market.

“The restaurant industry is one of the most dynamic and volatile industries to be involved in,” stated Catherine Kearns General Manager of CHD Expert North America. “Restaurants open and close on a regular basis and when considering expansion it is vital to understand the current market landscape and evaluate from a macro perspective. The insight provided by this tool is a game changer for foodservice professionals who are looking to better understand their competitive landscape.”

To get a free demonstration of Restaurant Chain Locator please contact bbloom(at)chd-expert(dot)com.

CHD Expert is the worldwide 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 support 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 our clients in their sales and marketing strategies by providing the most comprehensive and accurate foodservice census housing market information for more than 4 million operators worldwide. For more information or learn about all of our products available, please visit CHD-Expert.com.

Four reasons why Direct Street Reps can benefit from access to foodservice prospects

It can be very challenging for Distributers to stay on top of the ever-changing foodservice industry. What are you doing to set yourself up for success? As a sales professional, it is important that you maximize the time you spend selling and minimize time spent doing busywork.

CHD Expert can help make your process more efficient. Our foodservice database can provide you with digital access to a constant source of new prospects. We are the leading provider of foodservice industry data, and with our tool, Easy2FIND, you can have access to over 5 million accurate foodservice operator contacts.

Our foodservice data can help you improve your sales results. Here are four reasons why Direct Street Reps (DSRs) can benefit from constant access to foodservice prospects:

1. Complete and accurate prospect lists: With Easy2FIND, DSRs can have a constant source of new prospects at their fingertips. They don’t have to worry about staying on top of frequent operator changes. With Easy2FIND, DSRs have access to a custom portal filled with operator contact information that is accurate and updated regularly.
2. Spend time selling, not researching: Easy2FIND allows DSRs to spend more time selling and less time researching. DSRs don’t have to spend their time looking for new operators to call on or creating new prospect lists.  If DSRs aren’t spending their time selling, they are not making money and with Easy2FIND, DSRs can increase their efficiency.
3. Gain an edge over your competition: With Easy2FIND DSRs are using the latest digital technology to power their prospecting process. With a unique custom portal, DSRs have the ability to pinpoint their next prospect and get the contact details they need to connect with key decision makers, making their sales team more agile and efficient than competitors who still use dated methods.
4. Expand into new segments: With Easy2FIND, DSRs can continuously add new data to their custom portal. For example, if they want to expand their sales into a new segment like the healthcare industry, or move into a new geography or zip code, this information can be easily added to their custom portal and scaling into new markets becomes a cinch.

Easy2FIND is a new generation of online sales and marketing data analysis tool that improves market research and intelligence efforts. Easy2FIND provides you unlimited access to the Foodservice Industry National Database. Updated every month with businesses openings and closings!

Contact us with any questions at cathy@chd-expert.com or call us directly at (312) 768-6900.

 

 

Burger King Satisfries: Are healthier options the next trend for fast food restaurants?

By Nicolas Watson

Fast food is becoming healthier – at least for one popular fast food chain. With the introduction of ¨Satisfries¨, Burger King is leading the way in what may become a new trend for healthy fast food.

¨Satisfries¨ are a low-calorie version of Burger King´s original fries and contain 40% less fast than fries from McDonald´s. Now people have the option to choose between full-fat fries and healthier ones. What impact will this have on fast food?  Are Satisfries the first of many “healthier” fast food options?

Interestingly enough, this is the first time we’ve seen a menu innovation around French Fries. Fast food chains have played around with healthier options in the past, for example grilled chicken wraps or low-calorie salads. What’s brilliant is that Burger King was able to think about a food innovation that satisfies a fried food craving. They aren’t trying to replace fries with apple slices like some other chains. They are looking to capture that satisfying fried food taste that people come to fast food restaurants for.  Such menu innovations in the fast food industry may become more common as consumers needs and consumption continue to change.

For some, this will impact where they decide to open their next location. To choose the next best real-estate location, they might want to consider working with a company like CHD Expert. Here at CHD Expert, we help businesses visualize the market landscape by providing them with information on chains headquarters, sub-franchisees, regional offices or even multi-concept operators. CHD Expert can even break down the market landscape do this down to the zip code level and provide a visual aid as to where any restaurant is located within the defined area.

For more information on food service data or chain locator tool, visit CHD Expert. Or reach out to me directly at nwatson@chd-expert.com.

We Sell Data, We Manage Data.

Author: Nico Watson

Here at CHD Expert, our main focus is data. We sell data, we manage data, and we create insights around data! Data is at the core of our business. Especially foodservice data. That’s what we specialize in. We know the foodservice market place better than any other “generic” data provider out there.

We can help you improve your sales and marketing efforts. Want more info or to talk to one of our foodservice experts? Email me, Nicolas Watson (nwatson@chd-expert.com) to discuss how we can help your business.

In the mean time, this week we saw an awesome infographic that is all about data and we wanted to share it. Check out this amazing infographic about how Data Never Sleeps! Pretty amazing right? Thanks Domo for putting this visual all about data together!

America’s Favorite Food And The Economics Behind The Hamburger

Author: Nico Watson

Memorial Day Weekend usually kicks off the first official BBQ of the summer, and something we know is that Americans love hamburgers and cheeseburgers! Funny enough, while everyone seems to love hamburgers, everyone loves to dress their hamburger in their own way!

One of our favorite examples of individualized hamburgers is the menu and secret menu at In-N-Out. Did you know you could order a 3×3, ketchup and mustard instead, whole grill and pickles? It’s true! In-N-Out lets you customize a burger just the way you like it, even if it’s not on their menu, or their not-so-secret-menu.

As you know, here at CHD Expert, we provide data to foodservice professionals. Do you know which state has the most burger restaurants in America? According to our 2012 Foodservice Operator Update, California has the largest percentage of hamburger restaurants in the US, coming in at 12.3%. Furthermore, there are a total of 50, 064 hamburger restaurants in all of the US. Want more restaurant data, fill out the form to request a call. Click here.

When we saw this great infogaphic about hamburgers that uses data to tell us about the economics behind America’s favorite food, the hamburger, we got very excited! Take a look and let us know what you think? We are still amazed by staggering ketchup statistic that 71 pounds are consumed per person each year! Yikes

So next time you fire up the grill, take a good look at how you’re assembling your burger and how you contribute to the economics of Americans favorite food.

Hamburgers: The Economics of America’s Favorite Food infographic by Mint.com.

4th Of July Grilling Tips As You Fire Up Your BBQ

Who else is excited for 4th of July festivities? What plans do you have in store? While our office isn’t going to be open, many of us are going to be throwing or attending Independence Day barbecues. From hamburgers to hot dogs, grilled corn or even pineapple, we are going to be enjoying the afternoon with friends and family, as food and outdoor grilling are part of the American culture.

In light of the upcoming holiday, we wanted to share an awesome infographic to help our readers grill the tastiest food. Enjoy- from all of us at CHD Expert.

Source by JES Restaurant Equipment

Everything IS Bigger in TEXAS: Restaurant Density Heat Map

In preparation for the Southwest Foodservice Expo,  we wanted to put together a visual representation of how many restaurants Texas actually has! Inforgraphics are just another fun way to represent the restaurant data. Check out our stats and fun facts in CHD Expert’s first ever infographic!

To learn more or see a bigger version of the click: CHD Expert Infographic – Texas Heat Map !