Menu Planning & Product Development Report for Olive Garden, London

This report delves into the menu planning and product development strategies employed by Olive Garden, focusing on the launch of a new Indo-Italian food concept. It begins with an introduction to menu planning as a core function of product development in the restaurant business, followed by a justification of the menu design, highlighting its reflection of both Indian and Italian cultures. The report then explores the food service environment, including interior design, menu design, and service style, and presents the findings of customer requirement research conducted through a questionnaire. The analysis of customer preferences informed the development of recipes and the pricing strategy. The report further details the development procedure for launching the new food concept, including a timeline of activities and recommendations for implementation, such as staff training. The conclusion summarizes the successful implementation of the Indo-Italian food concept and reviews the overall performance of the restaurant's product development activities. References to relevant literature support the analysis.

Menu Planning
&
Product Development

Table of content
Introduction
Main body
Conclusion
References

Introduction
Menu planning is the basic function of the product development in restaurant businesses.
 It is the process to designing the list of all the dishes to be served by the restaurant. Olive
Garden is a Italian cousin restaurant located in London.
 The company wants to launch a new food concept of Indo-Italian foods

Justification of menu design to reflect the menu
compilation and recipe development
The Olive Garden has designed its menu in an attractive way. The design of menu shows the
tradition of the Indian culture along with the Italian culture.
 The menu also includes the details about the ingredients of the food. It helps the customer in
easily identifying the food.

To be conti…
The menu provides the clear picture of the new food concept i.e.
Indo- Italian foods.
In this way, the menu of the Olive Garden has been designed
attractively. It has an ability to attract the eyes of customers towards
the new food concept of the restaurant.

Justifying the development of the food service environment
for supporting recipe, menu and service style
The food service environment includes the interior design of the restaurant, design of menu,
creativity of serving the food, creativity of garnishing each dish, etc.
 The Olive Garden restaurant has designed the interior of the restaurant which is showing the
combination of Indian and Italian culture.
Further, the wall has been coloured with the light colours as to provide peace to the eyes of
customers.

To be conti…
In this regard, the internal environment, the menu, recipe etc. for the purpose of food
development and introduction of new food concept, has been set in an effective way.
 These are helping the restaurant in providing profitability to the market.


Findings of research into customers
requirements
For the purpose of analysing the customer requirement, the Olive Garden has prepared a
questionnaire to ask several questions from the 20 people randomly as follows:
Q.1 What type of ambiance do you prefer?
Traditional 7
Peaceful 5
Casual Dining 4
Family style 4

To be conti…
Q.3 What are major factor which affects your level of satisfaction?
Q.3 What are major factor which affects your level of satisfaction?
50-100££ 5£
70-130 9£
100-200 4£
200+ 2£
Peaceful environment 6
Interior design of restaurant 4
Taste of food 8
Price 6

To be conti…
Q. 4 What type of service facility do you prefer?
Self service 4
French style services 4
Buffet system 3
Waiter service 9

Justifying the choice of new food concept
The restaurant designed and developed the process of launching the new
food concept while taking into account the finding of customer
requirement from the above questionnaire.
 As the above analysis showed that the taste of food mostly affects the
satisfaction level of the food, the Olive garden majorly focused on the
taste of the food and developed the recipe on the basis of preferable taste
of the customers.

To be conti…
The price of each dish has been decided as per the spending power of the target customers.
Setup of development procedure for launching the new food concept while considering the
needs and preference of the customers has helped the restaurant in attracting huge number of
customers towards it.


Recommendations on the implementation of
new food concept
Olive Garden has generated idea of launching the new food concept of Indo-Italian food. It has
analysed all the major factors while performing the development procedure.
In addition, the following recommendation can be provided to it as to make the development
procedure more effective:
 The restaurant should conduct a training and development program for each waiter to
enhance their capabilities to serve the customers.

Reviewing own performance related to developing
and launching the new menu
Activity Standard time Actual time
Idea generation 3 months 3.5 months
Menu design 1 month 1 month
Recruitment of chef 15 days 13 days
Training and
development
program for chef
2 months 2 months

To be conti…
Activity Standard time Actual time
Training and
development of waiters
1 month 1.5 month
Ambiance design 5 months 6 months
Deciding list of food
containing Indo-Italian
concept
2 months 1.5 months

Conclusion
From the above study it has been concluded that the Olive Garden has decided to launch a new food
concept in the market i.e. Indo-Italian food.
 The restaurant has decided to adopt the waiter service as it was the most preferable as per the
questions asked to the population. The company has designed its menu, recipe, internal environment
and other product development elements in the most effective way.
It has helped the company in gaining huge profitability and market share.
Further, from the review of the performance of the restaurant, it has been concluded that the
restaurant has performed its overall product development activities in the most effective way.

References
Burger, E. and et.al., 2018. Sprouts Menu Development, Recipe Testing and
Evaluation.
Williams, O. and et.al., 2017. development of a Menu Board Literacy and Self-
efficacy Scale for Children. Journal of nutrition education and behavior. 49(10).
pp.867-871.
O’Donnell, T.H. and et.al., 2017. Developing a food system-sensitive
methodology to transform food “waste,” create new food businesses, and
address hunger in urban communities. In Feeding Cities (Vol. 129, No. 148, pp.
129-148). ROUTLEDGE in association with GSE Research.