Next Best Restaurant

Essential Question

What are current trends in the food industry and how do they affect business decisions?

Engagement Scenario

The food industry is constantly evolving. Each year, new food trends take the forefront of the restaurant industry and make their way into grocery stores everywhere. Nebraska is not only the home of ConAgra foods, which is one of the largest food companies, but it is also the home of 3,770 food-related locations throughout the state¹. Your local community is looking to expand its restaurant options and would like to open a restaurant that is centered on a current food trend. To accomplish this, the city council is hosting a “Shark Tank: Restaurants” competition for restaurant entrepreneurs like yourselves, to determine which new food trend will become the next best restaurant in town. Your team is faced with the challenge to conduct an opportunity analysis in order to convince the panel of venture capitalists that will be serving as judges, that your restaurant concept is the best one for your local community.

To accomplish your task, you and your team will learn how to conduct reliable research to ensure the data you are collecting for your opportunity analysis is authentic and trustworthy. In addition, you will research different food trends and how they play a role in the food industry. You will also research health claims that are not only food trends, but are often used on product labels to entice consumers. In order to determine if health claims are valid, you will learn how to distinguish between reliable and misleading health claims.

After researching on-line resources and other informational texts on food trends, restaurants, and health claims, and after participating in enabling activities in class, you will write the final opportunity analysis report using all of the information complied by your team and argues that your food trend will make the next best restaurant for your local community. Throughout this process, you will be analyzing data and learning how to identify a target market, which will be key for selecting the food trend for your restaurant. You and your team will also create a sample menu of five entrees to provide an example of the type of food that will be served at the restaurant. This will include a Chef’s Special that becomes the signature dish and is created around the food trend your team decides to exploit. There will be an extensive nutrition analysis required of the Chef’s Special. You are to report the Chef’s Special nutrition information including Calories, carbohydrates, proteins, fat (lipids), sodium, fiber, and cholesterol and any health claims. Be sure to support your position with evidence from the texts. You will research via the Internet and will organize your information using MS Word.

A presentation, based on your opportunity analysis, will be presented to the venture capitalists (local business people/restaurant professionals/food industry professionals) in a format of your design. You will need to include data from your opportunity analysis and other supporting evidence from your research. Your development team has to compete with other teams to recommend the food trend for the next best restaurant in your local community. The team with the best restaurant concept will be selected to have their restaurant open thanks to the investments of the venture capitalists. The investors want to see a research-based explanation to support your choice of food trend, a clear definition of your target market, a sample menu with basic nutritional information and health claims, and a thorough SWOT analysis to ensure you are aware of the risks and opportunities as a restaurant entrepreneur. You will deliver all of this in a 5-minute group presentation in a few weeks.

Course 3 Unit 4 Complete Curriculum

Appendices

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
Appendix 17	Appendix 17	Appendix 17	Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3	Appendix 4 Appendix 5
Day 6	Day 7	Day 8	Day 9	Day 10
Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 4 Appendix 5	None	Appendix 6	Appendix 7	Appendix 22
Day 11	Day 12	Day 13	Day 14	Day 15
Appendix 1 Appendix 2	Appendix 8	Appendix 9 Appendix 10	Appendix 11 Appendix 12 Appendix 13 Appendix 14	Appendix 11 Appendix 12 Appendix 13 Appendix 14
Day 16	Day 17	Day 18	Day 19	Day 20
Appendix 1 Appendix 2	Appendix 16	None	None	None
Day 21	Day 22	Day 23
Appendix 1 Appendix 2	Appendix 15 Appendix 16	Appendix 15 Appendix 16