Questions Before Adding a Menu Item

At Dough Tech, we’re proud of the high-quality bakery equipment we provide for industrial bakeries throughout the industry. We’re a national sales distributor for numerous products, and our clients love our bakery mixers, water meters, oven racks and more.

One of the primary uses of several of our products is helping our bakery clients introduce new products or sections within their business. Many products you might add to your menu will require different kinds of equipment than you had on hand previously, or may up your demand from a particular piece of equipment enough that you consider replacing it. We can help if you’re looking to find the right equipment here, but we can also help with a broader overall question: Is now the right time to add this item to the menu? Here are a few big questions to ask yourself while you make this call.

What’s the Market?

For starters, you have to consider whether you’ll have a true market for the new menu item you’re thinking about introducing. You’re not asking whether anyone will have interest in this product – there are 7 billion people on this planet, and you’re going to be able to find at least one person who likes pretty much anything. Rather, you’re looking for signs that this product will be a regular enough purchase that it should become part of your rotation.

A few sub-questions that will help you arrive at your final answer:

• Is the item you’re considering trendy or popular in any way?
• Will your new item attract new clientele?
• Even if it won’t will the new item at least attract enough people who will be interested in your other items to make the addition worthwhile?

What’s the Cost?

The next vital question to ask yourself about a new menu item is what it will cost to create – this includes stress on equipment and ingredient cost, so be sure not to leave either of these out. If you have to purchase special ingredients for this new menu item, that’s an additional cost to consider; the same goes for new equipment that might be needed. Compare the costs for this potential new item to your available budget and your projected return on investment.

Does it Fit Your Business?

Finally, even if a product seems to work well in the two areas above, you should ensure it’s an organic addition to your business. If you’re a sweets-only bakery, for instance, it probably isn’t very sensible to be adding plain bagels as a new menu item – your customers don’t come to you for bagels. This is an extreme example, obviously, but it can extend to numerous detailed areas as well.

For more on questions to ask yourself before adding a new menu item, or to learn about how our baking equipment can help with these processes, speak to the pros at Dough Tech today.