It’s been said that product development trends originate with foodservice; to find the next hot new product, look at restaurant menus. I’m wondering if that might apply to other aspects of food business, as evidenced by a couple of news stories from overseas.
The first is from Spain, where doggy bags will now be offered in restaurants as a matter of law. Spain passed legislation earlier this month mandating that restaurants will at least have to draw up plans to reduce food waste, one of the most common of which is expected to be doggy bags.
I don’t have any great knowledge of European dining norms, but my understanding has always been that restaurant doggy bags are considered a barbaric American practice – a consequence of our ridiculously oversized restaurant portions. But Spain wastes an estimated 1,400 tons of food each year and, like many Western nations, is trying to do something about it. If getting diners into the habit of taking leftovers with them makes an effect – even if only by raising awareness of the issue – what’s wrong with that?
From Australia comes news that local KFC restaurants are substituting cabbage for lettuce in their sandwiches out of necessity. Apparently there’s a nationwide shortage of lettuce, caused by flooding in the eastern part of the country, and KFC Australia announced that for the foreseeable future, it will be serving sandwiches with a lettuce/cabbage blend.
That touched off something of a social-media war, with cabbage-haters declaring “seems like a sign of the apocalypse” and cabbage fans saying “I like cabbage in burgers. It’s more substantial and gives more bite.”
To my knowledge I’ve never eaten raw cabbage, on a sandwich or anywhere else, unless you count the shredded stuff in coleslaw. On the other hand, I actively dislike iceberg lettuce, which has no taste, no nutritive value, and no reason to exist that I can see. I’d be perfectly willing to at least try cabbage on a sandwich.
So waste and shortages lead to two potentially positive outcomes in restaurants. It may be small consolation, but as a citizen of the world, I’ll happily take half of my cabbage-covered Australian sandwich home in my Spanish doggie bag.
