{"id":14348,"date":"2016-07-25T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-25T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/?p=14348"},"modified":"2016-07-25T10:02:21","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T14:02:21","slug":"inside-taco-bells-willy-wonkaesque-food-development-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/2016\/inside-taco-bells-willy-wonkaesque-food-development-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Taco Bell\u2019s Willy Wonkaesque Food Development Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/072516_1357_InsideTacoB1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"641\" height=\"605\" \/><\/p>\n<p>J. Bennett had the opportunity to visit Taco Bell&#8217;s food development lab. In addition to an expanded waistline he got insights on Taco Bell&#8217;s menu development process:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Taco Bell is now known for its more esoteric menu items like the Taco Shell made out of Doritos, or a quesadilla inside a burrito.<\/li>\n<li>Taco Bell sees itself as a food innovation company. Bringing creative items to the menu is key to remaining relevant by generating headlines in the news, and discussion on social media.<\/li>\n<li>Things begin with ideation sessions where as many as 600 ideas a year are considered.<\/li>\n<li>For the 30 that are selected for advanced consideration, the next step is to nail down the recipe \u2013 an iterative process that requires as many as 40 tries.<\/li>\n<li>Reactions are gauged in part through sensory rooms, where tasters are led into small cubicles equipped with cameras to record the reaction as they try the product.<\/li>\n<li>The product is then tried out in test markets, and various metrics are measured, such as the ratio of likes to dislikes (7:1 is considered good), percentage of customers who order it (12% is good, though with the Doritos Taco it was 33%), and if the product is generating new sales, or is merely redirecting money from existing products.<\/li>\n<li>If the product is received well it rolls out nationally. The entire process takes about six to nine months.<\/li>\n<li>Most items that result from this process don&#8217;t stay on the menu for too long. Once the buzz has died down and the headlines stop coming, the items are quietly removed.<\/li>\n<li>Some of the products that Taco Bell is experimenting with include a burger burrito, a maple-butter flavoured cone filled with crispy chicken, a mac &amp; cheese quesadilla, and multiple variations of food on an edible tortilla stick.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Read more about what it&#8217;s like in the labs over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thrillist.com\/eat\/nation\/taco-bell-insane-food-development-lab\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thrillist.com\/eat\/nation\/taco-bell-insane-food-development-lab\">Thrillist<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J. Bennett had the opportunity to visit Taco Bell&#8217;s food development lab. In addition to an expanded waistline he got insights on Taco Bell&#8217;s menu development process: Taco Bell is now known for its more esoteric menu items like the Taco Shell made out of Doritos, or a quesadilla inside a burrito. Taco Bell sees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bulletin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/072516_1357_InsideTacoB1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14348"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14353,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14348\/revisions\/14353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}