Post by kickingfrog on Sept 8, 2013 9:26:32 GMT
Le Bistrot Pierre, a chain of eight French restaurants located across the Midlands and northern England, launched a gluten-free menu in February. "We'd been getting a lot of interest from customers and we didn't have anything prepared so we'd been trying to do something to order," says John Whitehead, co-owner of Le Bistrot Pierre. "We decided we actually had to look at our dishes and create a menu that was big enough to interest people.
"It's commercially driven as well because we pretty quickly worked out that we're not just getting one person's meal ticket; coeliacs will go out to eat with three or four other people."
For Whitehead, it's largely a matter of marketing, as many of the chain's dishes were naturally gluten-free. "With the ones that weren't, it wasn't too difficult to change," he notes. For example, the popular beef bourguignon was made with flour, which has now been replaced with a gluten-free alternative. "We've now got a better quality stock and it actually tastes better," he adds.
There's been a cost for the marketing campaign as well as an expense attached to putting something totally new to the menu, but overall Whitehead estimates that the new initiative will be worth around £10,000 to £20,000 per month across the chain
- See more at: www.catererandhotelkeeper.co.uk/Articles/05/08/2011/339711/Are-you-missing-out-on-the-gluten-free-163.htm#sthash.UnTxrAaP.dpuf
"It's commercially driven as well because we pretty quickly worked out that we're not just getting one person's meal ticket; coeliacs will go out to eat with three or four other people."
For Whitehead, it's largely a matter of marketing, as many of the chain's dishes were naturally gluten-free. "With the ones that weren't, it wasn't too difficult to change," he notes. For example, the popular beef bourguignon was made with flour, which has now been replaced with a gluten-free alternative. "We've now got a better quality stock and it actually tastes better," he adds.
There's been a cost for the marketing campaign as well as an expense attached to putting something totally new to the menu, but overall Whitehead estimates that the new initiative will be worth around £10,000 to £20,000 per month across the chain
- See more at: www.catererandhotelkeeper.co.uk/Articles/05/08/2011/339711/Are-you-missing-out-on-the-gluten-free-163.htm#sthash.UnTxrAaP.dpuf