Gluten-Free, Organic or GMO-Free: What Matters Most to Fast-Casual Customers?According to a Zagat survey, trendy bragging points are less important to customers than things like made-to-order food and cleanliness.
ByKate Taylor•
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Fast-casual restaurants chainsChipotleandSweetgreenhave sought to cash in on the latest trends in nutrition. But how much do customers really care about promises of gluten-free, organic and GMO-free food?
According to a recent survey by Zagat, not as much as you might think. Of the three, customers are most likely to prioritize GMO-free food, with 19 percent of respondents saying it is "very important" that a fast-casual restaurant is GMO-free. Meanwhile, only 5 percent of respondents say it's very important to have gluten-free options, compared to 81 percent saying it's not important or they have no opinion.
Food and ingredient quality is still almost unanimously customers' most valued quality in a fast-casual restaurant, suggesting that customers' personal assessments of the food, not trendy labels, keeps them coming back. The two other most important factors: value and cleanliness.
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Zagat surveyed more than 6,600 people across the U.S. for the publication's first report on fast-casual dining.
Other interesting findings from the report include how often people eat at fast casuals (two-thirds either go once or twice a week or a few times a month) and when they go most often, with 60 percent tending towards lunch. Only 2 percent most frequently visit fast-casual restaurants for breakfast – an area with huge potential for growth, as at some fast-food chains,such as McDonald's, breakfast makes up a fourth of sales.
如何快速偶然客户概念化健康的呢d high-quality food will also continue to play a major role in how fast-casuals define themselves moving forward. The rise of gluten-free lifestyles already has: from 2010 to 2012, the number of gluten-free options increasedtenfoldon full-service menus. Chains fromPizza Hutto Panera have added or labeled gluten-free options in just the last year.
However, now the health-conscious crowd may be shifting its focus to GMOs: in April, Chipotle became the first national chain to go GMO free. Still, some customers want even more. On Monday, alawsuit was filedagainst the chain claiming that some menu items continue to contain GMOs, such as soft drinks and meat products are made from animals fed GMOs.
Related:At This New Fast-Food Restaurant, Human Interaction Is Almost Zero
