Knowledge

What Profitable Secrets Can You Copy From Fast Food Restaurants?

According to Grand View Research, an industry reports firm, The global fast food industry was estimated to be worth US$ 529.5 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach US$ 593.3 billion in 2021. This is an estimated US$ 63.8 billion increase in just one year.

Any aspiring business owner should really consider setting up a fast food restaurant. More and more people are dining or ordering out as fast foods become normalized as regular daily meals even by households.

They have also become cultural institutions and household names. McDonalds and the other fast food restaurants have become regular features in television and online. There are even movies and television shows that feature them.

A lot of people have also grown knowing them. Nowadays, a lot of children prefer fast food meals over home cooked meals. All these factors would only serve to further popularize fast foods. But what are the secret of Fast Foods which make them successful?

It’s all over the internet: how fast foods use the colors red and yellow to bring customers inside their restaurants. As consumer psychologists explains this strategy: the color RED is associated with emotion and passion.

A lot of people who see the color red are almost always fixated with the object that is colored red. Ever wonder why normal women who wear the color red suddenly look more attractive? It’s because of the color red.

The color YELLOW meanwhile has the psychological effect of stimulating both hunger and happiness in people. This two colors combined together has the potent visual effect on people which essentially means: “Eat our food because it would make you happy and satisfied.”

Also, the food portions on the promotional images of fast foods are much larger and more visually appealing than in real life. This essentially makes the customer more hungry and conveys the visual message that they would be satisfied by Fast Food’s food.

Most Fast Food restaurants are also utilitarian and hygienic looking. Utilitarian means that Fast Foods don’t conflict with the customer’s design tastes and therefore not offending them. Hygienic means that customers feel safe health wise when entering fast food restaurants.

Haven’t you noticed that many fast food restaurants seemingly have a promo everyday which is prominently displayed outside of their restuarant? This has the effect of stopping passersby in their tracks.

And why is this so? Because the promos are actually designed to lure you in inside the fast food restaurant. If you ever see one of these promos, you would think that the fast food is actually losing money with this promos when in fact they’re not.

This is because customers usually change their mind in buying the promoted foods in favor of more seemingly cheaper bargains called ”value meals”. This value or combo meals has the effect of making you buy more than what you originally intended to buy.

And what about the deals prominently displayed outside the fast food restaurant? They are usually hidden in some corner of the counter where most customers won’t be able to see them. Essentially this makes the customer forget that these promos even existed.

In the menus, the picture of the food is so much larger as compared to its price which is displayed considerably smaller. This has the visual effect of making the price of the food cheaper when in fact it’s not. It’s devious but a very effective technique.

As compared with other restaurants, fast food restaurants offer only a limited amount of food which are even interchangeable. For example, a fast food restaurant can offer a fried chicken with chips combo or fried chicken with mashed potatoes combo.

In essence, the two meals are the same with both having chicken and potatoes. The only difference between the two is how the potatoes are cooked. Simple strategies like these reduce dramatically the inventory and logistics cost of fast foods.

It also reduces the manpower and the manpower cost needed to run the restaurant. Fast Foods don’t hire highly paid cooks and chefs when a laborer can be paid minimum wage to cook their simple food offerings which is usually fried.

Is there anyone who doesn’t know how to fry food? Is there anyone who doesn’t know how to prepare a hamburger? This is the reason why a fast food’s simple food offering saves them a lot of money as compared to traditional restaurants with their more fancy foods.

Another thing to consider is that cooking oil can be used multiple times before it becomes unusable. Consider also that fried food lasts longer as compared to other foods cooked in a different way. These two also further increases a fast food restaurant’s profit margins.

Did you know that McDonalds closed up their restaurant for a long time in order to study how to make themselves more efficient? In the end, McDonalds developed a kitchen layout which enabled kitchen staff to prepare a food within a few minutes.

This enabled them to maximize on worker efficiency, save wastage, and please customers more. This also has especially enabled them to sell very cheap foods. This enabled McDonalds to become the number one fast food restaurant chain in the world.

As a result, other fast food restaurants copied McDonalds kitchen operations and layouts and became more efficient and more profitable themselves. It is worth studying McDonalds kitchen operations and layout.

In general, fast foods have simple layouts and furnishings. The restaurant surfaces like walls, tables, chairs and so on are designed to be flat for aesthetic appeal and for easy cleaning. This enables fast food restaurant to save on cleaning supplies and staff.

All in all, a fast food restaurant is designed like an assembly plant. Customer come in, order food, eat the food and then leave. The fast food staff then cleans the table within seconds ready for the next customer to use it.

They design playpens which are designed to keep children for a long time inside them. This essentially locks in a family or someone with a child for a longer time. The longer a child stays, the better is the chances of a fast food to make more money from the child and their carers.

It’s also a long term investment for the fast food company. Fast foods like to hook a person for life starting to when they’re still young. A child would favor a fast food restaurant more than an actual park playground because fast foods are more pleasing to them.

Park playgrounds only offer facilities for play which fast foods can offer in their own building. It doesn’t matter if it’s rainy or muddy, a child can play year round in a fast food playpen.

Fast Foods also offer instant hot, oily, and salty food, not to mention very sweet tasting sodas and treats. So what will the child choose: A park playground or a fast food restaurant? The answer is very obvious.

Fast foods have matured long enough to give an almost uniform experience to their customers. For example, McDonalds’ Golden Arches are known throughout the world. When people see it, they are reminded of fast service, satisfying food and the hygiene of the place.

Compare this for example to a small mom and pop restaurant where people literally have to take chances in terms of food and experience whenever they eat in them. There are actually people so finicky and paranoid that they won’t eat outside unless its a fast food restaurant.

This is how much fast foods have ingrained themselves in the consciousness of society. It also helps that they have massive advertising and marketing budgets to further ingrain themselves to customer’s minds.

Fast Foods are not only here to stay but they intend to dominate the entire fast food industry. They are so popular that even expensive restaurants are copying their operations model. Even mom and pop restaurants are starting to duplicate their operations and food offerings.

Although many health conscious people and groups like to point out that their foods are unhealthy and even not good for the environment, the consumers have favored them with their stomachs. It’s worth copying fast food techniques if you ever want to go in the restaurant business.

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