Adding Ice Cream to your Menu this Summer time
Ice cream is good any time of year, but still Summer time is, without a doubt, the best. A walk under the sun and you soon want a thirst-satisfying, nothing is better than rich, creamy ice cream treat, especially if you are visiting one of the various tourist attractions that are open during summer.
In fact, some of the many tourist attractions sell their own ice cream, either from their own ice cream parlor, from a little kiosk or even from an ice cream truck or a food cart. It has been a summer treat for people of all ages for many generations. Ice cream has topped the list of the most popular desserts for a long time and shows no sign of surrendering its position to some upstart torte or mini-cupcakes. Ice cream sales reached billions in 2011, and restaurants considered accounted for 57 percent of that sales. It is a smart move to add Ice Cream to your Restaurant Menu during this time of the year, but first, take into consideration some strategies and kitchen equipment necessary to make your plan a success.
Know Your Target Customers
The first step toward planning on adding ice cream to your menu is determining your target customers. Your target customers should be based on your recent customer demographics. Understanding the demographics of your target customers is critical for its success. It is also important to consider what kind of customers you would like to see more. For instance, a sustainability-focused restaurant would do well to add homemade, personalized ice cream to your menu and a family-friendly business could benefit from adding snack-sized ice cream for walk-in customers at a low price. Be child-friendly. It is a good idea to store some traditional flavor such as chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and Personalized Superman for the little ones. Surround your decisions with more choices in line with what your target customers want.
Make Daring Flavors
One of the reasons why the ice cream’s popularity continues among customers and chefs, it’s because of its great versatility. Though vanilla flavor continues to be the most popular flavor, daring and delightful flavors have been growing in popularity and selling really well in certain parts across the nation. Here is the Best New Ice Cream Flavors for Summer 2015 (Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-best-new-ice-cream-flavors-for-summer-2015_us_559ff710e4b01c2162a664ee):
- Banana Nut Confetti Ice Cream
- Speculoos Cookie Butter Dairy-Free Ice Cream
- Tomato Water Sherbet from Salt & Straw
- Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream
- Wildflower Honey Pistachio Dairy-Free Ice Cream
- “Netflix” Ice Cream
- Carrot Cake Ice Cream
- Almond Poppy Seed Ice Cream
- Honeycomb Ice Cream
The success of unique and unheard flavor combinations has shown to do well with the Ice cream-loving crowd. If your place sees more traditional vanilla and chocolate flavor, consider trying out new daring flavor at a time. Introduce your customers to new flavor combinations and discover what flavors they love the most and which ones to remove from the menu.
Equipment Needed
Whether you are serving homemade ice cream, milkshakes, soft serve or floats, you will need some kitchen equipment to keep your business operations running smoothly. Here’s a list of the basic equipment:
• Ice Cream Machines
• Soft Serve Machines
• Freezers
• Refrigerators
• Hard and Fried Ice Cream Machine
For Display and Storage:
• Refrigerated Display Cases
• Ice Cream Showcase
• Dipping Cabinets
Using these strategies and kitchen equipment combined with the everlasting charm of an ice cream, you should be able to satisfy your customers’ desire for sweet indulgences and see your dessert sales rise.
So how do you make the decision on which one of these ice cream flavors serving at your restaurant? Thankfully, there are ice cream machines and ice cream showcase available at Fun Food Thailand that can do it all for you, all you need to do is create a new innovative menu. These restaurant equipment can be able to make custard, ice cream, sorbet and frozen yogurt, making it an easy choice if you plan to serve any of these frozen desserts. When you can cut out some extra pieces of equipment, you save money and space in your commercial kitchen. You may even consider putting these machines in a customer-accessible area and have a toppings bar for a specialized frozen dessert experience.
