This is cool. Starbucks is changing their policy to slow things down so that their baristas can focus more on quality. Just because you can do something faster, doesn’t always mean you should. We have always believed that if you make an amazing product, people will usually wait for it. Going for ultimate efficiency is a slippery slope. Sure, people should never have to wait for no reason or when it’s not busy, but little time cuts here and there eventually add up to big drops in quality. While we are always looking for ways to be more efficient, any changes must never result in a drop in the customers’ experience. A great example is our decision to cut fresh steak for salads. Sure, we could speed up the line by pre-cutting the steak and holding it on ice, but then it wouldn’t be as tender and tasty. We think some things in life are worth the wait. Like amazing food.
Posts Tagged ‘fast food’
The gloves are coming off in the attack on obesity
Modmarket Catering in Denver and Boulder — 9/16/2010
Wow. This ad was produced by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and aired in the Washington DC area recently. It is nice to see SOMEONE spending time and money going up against the fast food industry- one of the groups most responsible for driving up healthcare costs in the US. Obesity in the US is caused in large part by what people eat and and a large part of what people eat is fast food. Sure, it is not all bad, but survey the landscape and you see a lot more similarity to places like McDonald’s than not. This ad is sensational (read this comment string in the NYT) and extremely one-sided (just like Super Size Me), but it seems to have gotten a lot of peoples attention, which is awesome.
We know McDonalds isn’t the only problem, but they are the largest player in an industry that is negatively affecting the health of the population. People love to make the argument that it is your choice to eat fast food, but is it always your ‘choice’ if the food is addictive? Look at cigarettes; for the longest time people thought they were not so bad. Then a bunch of research comes out showing that not only are they killing you, they are addictive as all get out. Through education, regulation, and taxation we have curtailed the effect of smoking on the population of the US. Sure, people still smoke, but everyone who does it at least makes a conscious choice to do something that is bad for them. Education has made this possible, and it also drastically affected the amount of children who smoke. Why shouldn’t fast food see similar education, regulation, and taxation programs? The big difference between food and cigarettes is that while you can quit smoking, you can’t quit eating. That is why it is crucial to have programs in place that alter the eating patterns of the population while at the same time forcing the food service industry to change their destructive ways. And unless people start getting less busy and finding more time to cook from scratch, more places like Modmarket will be needed to give people fast, affordable options for eating that are sustainable for your health. Hopefully others will see this void in the market, throw on their chef coats like we did, and create more sustainable fast food options. This ad does a great job of pointing out the fatal flaw in the fast food system, eat enough of what is out there now, and it will kill you. Hopefully that energizes people to see that the same system that created the problem (one that makes food convenient for a modern lifestyle) can also be a solution to the problem. Fast food and sustainable health do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Wow.
Modmarket Catering in Denver and Boulder — 4/10/2010
vs 
You just can’t make stuff like this up. KFC has decided to make a ‘sandwich’ where the bun is replaced with fried chicken. Awesome. I wonder if we will ever have a customer who thinks ‘hmmm, what should I eat today, the KFC double down or a Market salad from Modmarket?’ I am pretty sure there is not a lot of crossover between our customers 
Fatty foods proven to be addictive…surprise, surprise
Modmarket Catering in Denver and Boulder — 3/30/2010
Interesting study recently came out showing that fatty foods can be as addictive as hard drugs. As someone who has watched numerous friends and family members struggle with changing eating habits over the years, this is not surprising at all. One of the people involved in the study made a very interesting comparison between modern food and cocaine.
“We make our food very similar to cocaine now,” he says.
Coca leaves have been used since ancient times, he points out, but people learned to purify or alter cocaine to deliver it more efficiently to their brains (by injecting or smoking it, for instance). This made the drug more addictive.
According to Wang, food has evolved in a similar way. “We purify our food,” he says. “Our ancestors ate whole grains, but we’re eating white bread. American Indians ate corn; we eat corn syrup.”
Very interesting stuff. Makes me happy that Modmarket is doing its part to be a solution in this whole food mess rather than part of the problem.
Eat Healthy, Save On Healthcare Costs
Modmarket Catering in Denver and Boulder — 7/27/2009
File this one in the ‘well that makes sense’ category. A new study was released today which showed that 9.1% of ALL healthcare spending is related to obesity. This is up from 6.5% in 1998. Click here to read the article.
If more people ate the kinds of foods we are serving up at modmarket, our country could save billions of dollars in health care costs. More importantly, I think all the people who were no longer obese would feel a lot better too! (more…)
I have a crush on Chipotle
Modmarket Catering in Denver and Boulder — 7/19/2009
We often say, when someone wants a flatbread, they go to modmarket. When they want a burrito, they go to Chipotle. Like mM, Chipotle tries really hard to serve the highest quality ingredients and change the expectation that people have of the quality of fast food. Check out this interview with Steve Els, the founder of Chipotle.