According to foodnavigator.com a new national service called Hello Consumer has been recently launched in Sweden aiming to provide all consumer-related information and guidance for consumers in the country.

„Hallå konsument” (Hello Consumer) has been set up in collaboration with other government agencies, consumer organizations such as the National Food Administration, the central supervisory authority on food and drinking water, and is coordinated by the Swedish Consumer Agency. It has also collaborated with the Swedish National Board for Consumer Complaints, Swedish Consumer Energy Markets Bureau and Swedish Consumers’ Insurance Bureau among other municipal consumer organizations.

It has a team of consumer advisors who answer questions of consumers regarding the purchase of products, services, contracts, claims and provide information on consumer rights, personal finance or how to make sustainable choices.

Hello Consumer stated that “more than half million Swedes lack guidance on consumer issues…Hello Consumer will provide independent and easily accessible information to consumers.” It added that their purpose is to also make consumers’ lives easier by giving them “quick and useful answers to help them make informed choices.”

The service will be available on-line, on telephone, e-mail and also on social network.

Source: www.foodnavigator.com

The 7^th edition of GastroPan, which took place at Târgu Mureş on 19-21^st of March 2015, was a huge success. More than 21,000 visitors have attended to meet the newest technologies of the market, and the majority of the 132 exhibitors from 24 countries have already planned to come back with even bigger booths for next year's exhibition.

The capacity to reunite equipment suppliers, ingredients, utensils and solutions with manufacturers, operators, specialists and entrepreneurs activating in the field has assured the success of the exhibition. At the booths visitors have found the newest and most efficient solutions for businesses such as bakeries, confectioneries, pastry shops, restaurants, coffee houses, mills, hotels, chocolate houses, ice cream shops or other related specialized shops.

The visitors of Expo GastroPan had the opportunity to experience, try and taste a large variety of solutions, machineries, technologies and ingredients, some of them being available for the first time on the Romanian market. Managers and specialists in the field have discovered new business ideas and solutions for making their activities more efficient, for reducing expenses, for quality improvement, or for developing new products and services that adapt to the current requirements of the market.

This year Expo GastroPan has been once again the place for innovation and creativity, hosting even more demonstrations which underlined the usefulness and the efficiency of the exhibited technologies. Answering the invite of the organizers, at the exhibitors' booths, but also outside of them, World and Olympic champion bakers, chefs, confectioners and cake designers have shared their talents with thousands of visitors. Fruit and vegetable sculpting, modelling out of sugarpaste, artistic sugar painting and the technique of modelling pulled, blown and poured sugar were among the biggest attractions of GastroPan 2015.

The 212 best bakers, confectioners and chefs from all around Romania have entered the GastroPan Competitions. Apart from the Bread of the Year 2015 and the Cake of the Year 2015, the best pastry products, the greatest culinary plates and the most amazing artistic creations made of dough, fruits and vegetables, sugarpaste or Isomalt have been awarded. Find out the results of the GastroPan Competitions HERE or on www.gastropan.ro.

Professional associations from Romania and several other European countries attended GastroPan, a benchmark exhibition for consolidating the industry of bakery in Eastern Europe. The leaders of professional associations from Romania, Slovakia and Hungary mediated by the vice-president of International Union of Bakers and Confectioners have discussed how to collaborate and how to promote the Romanian products on the EU markets.

For consumers, choosing where to eat is a complex decision. Today’s diners are concerned about the quality of the food they’re eating, but they’re also looking at factors beyond food, like technology and a restaurant’s environmental impact.
Here are seven things consumers take into account when choosing a restaurant, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2015 Restaurant Industry Forecast:

Healthier options: More diners are looking for healthful options when they dine out, and restaurants are responding to that demand. More than eight in 10 restaurants say their guests are paying more attention to the nutrition content of their food today than they were two years ago. Diners are also seeing more options from restaurants, and 81 percent of adults say restaurants offer more healthful options than they did two years ago.

Eco-friendly dining: When they choose a restaurant, many consumers are thinking about the earth as much as their palates. Nearly two-thirds of consumers say they’re likely to consider a restaurant’s eco-friendly practices when they decide where to eat.

Technology: The number of consumers who say technology options like smartphone apps or self-service kiosks are an important factor in choosing restaurants is on the rise, up to about 25 percent from roughly 20 percent a year ago. The increase spans generations, with older and younger customers alike expanding their use.

Quality, innovative food: Nine out of 10 consumers say food quality is an important factor in choosing a restaurant, and six in 10 claim to be more adventurous diners than they were two years ago. More than half are looking for innovative meals that they can’t make at home.

Local foods: Locally sourced meats and seafood and produce were near the top of the list of the NRA’s Top 25 lists of 2015 tableservice and limited-service menu trends.Find out what else is on the list, including trends in breakfast, appetizers, desserts and classic favorites.

In the bar and restaurant industry, what’s more valuable than new customers is the ability to turn them into long-term, repeat patrons. According to a statistic in a Food Service Warehouse article, The Race for Long-Term Customer Loyalty, loyal customers spend 67 percent more than new ones, making it in your bar or restaurant’s best interest to focus on customer retention.

If you’ve been strategizing about how to increase your customer retention rates, here are four tried and true ways to turn your new customers into loyal guests for years to come.

1) Perfect the guest experience:

The single most important thing to do to ensure your customers remain loyal to your brand is to make the guest experience as perfect as possible. Certainly, no restaurant can be perfect all of the time, but there are ways to minimize negative guest experiences. Excellent service, quality, atmosphere and cleanliness are among the hallmarks of every restaurant business. Go to every expense to make sure there are no flaws in any of these core areas. Invest in your staff with a consistent and thorough training program. Reward your service staff members who go above and beyond to exceed customer expectations. Simplify menus, staff your restaurant appropriately for rush times. Organize the kitchen layout to be more efficient in order to avoid unnecessary service delays or poor/inconsistent food quality.

2) Offer a loyalty rewards program: 

Rewards programs are an important way to incentivize your customers to keep coming back in as well as thank them for their patronage. For instance, research conducted by FastCasual found in one 4-store study that across all order types (dine in, delivery, to go and pick up) the loyalty members spent an average of $2.14 more per transaction, even after accounting for all the discounts or rewards they may have applied to the order. Digital loyalty programs make it easy to track your customers’ purchases and accrued rewards, while making it easier for guests to benefit from these programs by doing away with plastic reward cards that often get lost, forgotten and unused. The keys to a successful loyalty program are 1) offering rewards that guests find meaningful, 2) making it easy for customers to use their loyalty cards and redeem rewards 3) making the programs easy and efficient for bars and restaurants to manage and administer.

3) Build personal relationships with your customers:

Your loyal, return customers like to feel special and important, part of your restaurant family. Every staff member, whether it’s the bartender, greeter or server needs to make building relationships with your regular customers a top priority. That means having the Executive Chef, owner or manager make special visits to their table to see how they’re doing, or perhaps, showing extra gratitude by preparing special off-menu dishes based on their unique preferences. Giving loyal guests that sense of being a VIP in your restaurant will only further endear them to your brand.

4) Solve issues with your loyal customers before they become bigger problems:

This is where making regular customer feedback a priority comes in. The sooner you know there is a problem with your guest, especially someone who is a loyal customer, the sooner you can intervene before it escalates to something bigger. Regularly pass out guest cards for their feedback and make sure the data is being captured and analyzed on a regular basis.

With these four simple approaches, you’ll be seeing improvements in your customer retention numbers in no time.

Source: ww.restaurantnews.com