Menu engineering or Menu psychology, is the design of a menu to maximize restaurant profits. This also applies to cafes, bars, hotels, event catering and online food delivery platforms.
History
The concept of menu engineering was first introduced in 1982 by Michael L. Kasavana and Donald I. Smith.
Visual perception
Visual
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, ...
and
attention
Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Att ...
are linked to how customers read a menu. Most menus are presented visually (though many restaurants verbally list daily specials). The majority of menu engineering recommendations focus on how to increase attention by strategically arranging menu categories within the pages of the menu, and item placement within a menu category. This strategic placement of categories and items is referred to as the theory of ''sweet spots.
[Though the original reference of 'sweet spot' has not been found, it has been traced to repeated references in academic work and trade press. See Kelson, A. H. (1994) "The ten commandments for menu success". ''Restaurant Hospitality'', 78(7), 103.
]
Kotschevar, L. H. (208). In Withrow D. (ed.), ''Management by Menu'' (4th ed.), Hoboken, N..: John Wiley.
Miller, J. E., 1930–. (1992). ''Menu Pricing & Strategy''. (3rd Ed.). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.''
The reasoning being sweet spots stem from the classical effect in psychology known as the
serial position effect
Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that r ...
(also known as the rules of recency and primacy). The thought is, customers are most likely to remember the first and last things they see on a menu—hence, sweet spots on a menu should be where the customers look first and last. To date, there is no empirical evidence on the efficacy of the sweet spots on menus.
Customer perception of items offered on a menu can also be affected by subtle textual manipulations. For example, descriptive labeling of menu items may produce positive effects, leading to higher customer satisfaction, and higher perceived product value. Similarly, the presence of dollar signs or other potential monetary cues may cause guests to spend less.
Managerial accounting
Low food cost and high gross profit are not mutually exclusive attributes of a menu item. A second approach called
cost-margin analysis identifies items that are both low in food cost and return a higher than average gross profit. These items referred to as primes.
Further reading
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References
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Restaurant menus
Product management