NEW MENU LAUNCH PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

Together with culinary guidance from Chef Jodi-Ann Pearton, Dulcé Café launches new green menu

In stores from Monday, 14 June, 2010; Dulcé Café’s new ‘green’ menu follows the international trend towards healthy simplicity. Chef Jodi-Ann Pearton, of The Food Design Agency, was first challenged with the franchise foodie brief, in mid-February, 2010. The result: a complete rejuvenation of the brand, through the birth of a new menu.

Says Brigid Ryall, Dulcé Café Marketing Manager, “When Dulcé Café first came to market, our restaurant offering was unique and dynamic. It was felt that over time, we allowed ourselves to become complacent, losing our edge for creating and setting trends, while simultaneously offering continental flair.” 

Pearton’s brief was simple: Concentrate on redefining the Dulcé Café concept by refocusing the menu mix in line with the brand’s identity – that of a continental café.

Ryall and Pearton embarked on a countrywide expedition of investigation into various working processes both inside and outside of the store kitchens; scrutiny of suppliers and contracts; analysis of sales figures across various food dishes; testing of existing menu items; and lastly, interviewing franchisees on their thoughts and drawing on their wealth of in-store experience.

Pearton and her team then retreated to her culinary studio to embark upon two month’s worth of trials and testing, to produce a gourmet range of 21 new standardised and delectable dishes.

Says Pearton, “The new menu is in-line with international food trends, which means it is healthy and utilises both local and seasonal ingredients. The flavours are wholesome and superb – going back to Dulcé Café’s roots. As a direct result, each dish is not overly processed, yet still suitably familiar to entice the South African palate.

I removed items such as the pitas and pancakes, as I felt this was causing confusion and inconsistencies in the category of cuisine synonymous with the franchise food offering. I have included items such as Cumin butternut and chickpea salad, Nicoise salad, Panzanella salad, chicken spedini’s, butter chicken curry, pannacotta, chocolate mud cakes and an entire soup section – just for starters.

In essence, I am very excited and proud of the new menu. I believe that it is colourful, flavoursome and offers great value for money. More importantly; all the new menu items are simple for the store kitchens to reproduce – ensuring speedy service, quality and consistency in every dish.”

Today, Dulcé Café has nearly 60 stores operating in Southern Africa. One of Dulcé Café’s success strategies, is to 'tailor make' each store to its environment.

Dulcé Café currently operates sites in a wide variety of markets such as malls, airports, universities, hotels, nursery lifestyle centres, private hospitals and more.

Dulcé Café’s success to date is largely the result of an ongoing investment into research, and analysis of the market and the brand. The group’s belief is that through ongoing scrutiny of trade areas, customer needs, brand perceptions and store performance; the chain can maximise profits, as well as customer satisfaction. Dulcé Café has commissioned major market research projects of the coffee shop market on a national scale. The findings have been aggressively responded to and have had an enormous impact on the stores as they are known today.

The brand is also currently undergoing a metamorphosis in terms of its look and feel, which should be launched towards the end of June. Combined with the introduction of the new menu; this is sure to position Dulcé Café at the forefront of this particular restaurant sector.