We had our call today with Tom Straub, Corporate Chef and John Ponczoch, SVP Restaurant Operations, which went very well.
John and Tom are both very interested in hearing back from drivers on their menus and presentation at both the TA and the Petro.
We had a very candid discussion on our likes and dislikes of the menu selections.
One of the concerns we wanted addressed was nutritional content of the menu items and calories. The calorie and nutrition content was discussed at length. They have this information, but are waiting on the government to set the standards on how this will be presented to their customers. John said that if the government did not have this decision by the middle of 2011 they would go ahead and use their own format to get this information out to their patrons.
They discussed the struggle they are having selling their healthy choice menu items.
One of the menu items brought up was getting rid of the instant oatmeal and using steal cut oatmeal. They tried this once before and had more complaints then kudos.
One of the major items on their agenda is the vegetables and how they are cooked at this time and improving the quality.
They are also working on the idea for regional menu items. This is a little more of struggle as not all managers want to handle this additional burden. There have been many comments on this idea and they are continuing to work on this.
The soups are also made in house from stock not from a can. They are going to look at ways to market this to their customers.
We were on the call with the representatives from TA for over an hour and I believe both sides walked away feeling as if we learned something.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions and ideas. I directed the chef to this thread and he picked up many thoughts.
