All the current data about consumer restaurant preferences shows that business will continue to migrate towards healthier food option. McDonald’s is definitely pay attention to these trends, and is developing several strategies to adapt to them.

One intriguing concept that McDonald’s is testing out is the Corner Cafe brand. The company soft-launched this concept with one location in Sydney, Australia. This single location is a great space for McDonald’s to test out new, healthier meal options and see how they can adapt their quick service model to more upmarket fare.

The Corner Cafe’s menu is constantly changing as McDonald’s tests out new ideas. The cafe features fancier drinks than McDonald’s other brands, with baristas handcrafting coffee beverages and serving up craft sandwiches. The food options are reminiscent of Starbucks and other coffee chains that are seen as being slightly more upscale than McDonald’s, leaning heavily on sandwiches with fresh and healthy fillings.

McDonald’s is trying to future proof its business by creating the type of store quick service customers will want to visit decades from now. The Corner Cafe may represent McDonald’s prediction for what quick service will look like in 2025.

Read the full article here: Business Intelligence Spurs ‘Future Lab’ Innovation at McDonald’s Corner Cafe

More and more restaurant chains are experimenting with implementing delivery services these days. It’s easy to see why: Americans are ordering delivery nearly twice as frequently as they did five years ago. A fleet of tech startups are experimenting with offering a new kind of delivery service to meet the increased demand. Companies like Caviar, DoorDash, OrderUp, and Postmates charge a fee to pick up their order from a restaurant and deliver it to the customer.

These startups have some advantages. Customers can order on an app and track the turn-by-turn progress of their delivery, and can order from anywhere because the delivery services aren’t partnered up with specific restaurants. However, in their current form, delivery startups like Postmates have problems. They are expensive for one, with delivery fees often in excess of 10 dollars. Furthermore, they are inefficient, because delivery workers often just wait in line to order food like any other customer to pick up food.

The Postmates model shows promise, but there is room for improvement. If the delivery services figure out how to get prices down and solve their coordination problem with restaurants, they stand to change the way food delivery is done.

Read the full article here: Delivery at Scale

The United Nations made headlines a little while ago when it suggested that humans should consume more insects in the future as a way to combat climate change and food availability issues. Many American commenters were aghast at the UN’s seemingly barbaric suggestion. Their horrified reactions are indicative of the North American taboo against insect consumption that casts insects in a disgusting light.

The thing is, it would be a good idea for humans to eat more insects. Bugs are plentiful and nutritious, and raising them doesn’t use a lot of the Earth’s precious resources. Plus, insects can be downright delicious, as people from any of the numerous cultures that eat them regularly would tell you.

Eater has a piece that explores how to win Americans over to the insect-eating cause. They argue that the key to getting Americans into edible bugs is for chefs to embrace the culinary possibilities of bugs. Chefs in America have a long and successful history of getting Americans to eat things that had previously been unthinkable, from ethnic foods like fish sauce and kimchi to strange cuts of meat like sweetbreads and tongue. Making insects the stars of legitimately delicious dishes will do more to convince Americans to eat bugs than trying to hide the bugs by grinding them up into flour, as some people are trying to do.

Read the full article here: What Will It Take For Americans to Eat Insects?

The cocktail craze has brought many previously-neglected spirits to prominence in recent years. American consumers who once turned their nose up at anything other than vodka are now obsessed with bourbon, artisanal tequila, and stranger liquors like chartreuse. One spirit that is poised to benefit from America’s newfound taste for exotic imbibables is cachaca, Brazil’s national liquor.

Cachaca is a snappy, spicy, and sweet clear liquor made from fermented sugarcane juice. It is most well known for being the base for the Caipirinha, a cocktail of cachaca, lime, and sugar that tastes like Brazil’s beaches in a glass. Although cachaca has traditionally only really been available in Brazilian restaurants in the US, it is growing in popularity, and with good reason. Cachaca is complex yet light, and it’s highly mixable. Artisanal cachacas made in traditional copper pot stills are becoming more available in America, introducing US drinkers to the wide variety of flavor profiles the spirit can have.

One incredibly exciting thing about cachaca is that it’s the only widely available spirit in the world that can be aged in the rainforest woods of Brazil. Most of the flavor of aged spirits comes from the barrels in which they are aged, and the exotic woods used for cachaca have flavor profiles that are unfamiliar to most drinkers.

Cachaca seems like it may take the same path in the American drinking market that tequila did recently, as American consumers discover the variety and quality of a spirit that was previously seen as a one-trick pony.

Read the full article here: A Complete Guide to Cachaca: Brazil’s Most Popular Spirit