Sweeten profits: get desserts off back burner - great potential for good desserts at chain restaurants - Column

What do you think of the desserts offered by major chain restaurants? What do your kids, friends or worst enemies think? Is this a big missed opportunity for someone to develop a dessert business, create an off-hours snack daypart, bring more people and families in for the evening meal and create more takeout and take-home?

Desserts are supposed to be fun, so I visited 10 of the biggest, best chains in Wilmington, N.C., and bought and tasted all their desserts. I rated them on the familiar 1-10 scale for taste, texture, portability, healthfulness and freshness of concept.

The results were more dramatic and disappointing than I would have thought -- an average of 4.2 on the good, old 10-point scale. That's below what most skaters do on a six-point scale. And I'm usually at least a seven or eight kind of guy!

Just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I asked my partner to do the same thing in Scarsdale, N.Y. He did. He says: "4.2, you were generous. The desserts are a real sorry lot." Sales analysis shows the same underperformance. Practically nine in 10 visits to a quick-service restaurant does not include a dessert. And with all those kids and adults looking for an inexpensive treat!

OK, what did we find?

* Half the chains still have, probably left over from the '60s, what are generally called hot "apple pies." They are largely dough, were obviously frozen and thankfully have lots of cinnamon taste and sugar. But they have made a technological breakthrough. They're now baked instead of fried in fat. Still, they have 280+ calories, 15+ grams of fat, more than a cheeseburger or an order of fries. Average score: 3.2.

* More than half the chains, which never copy each other, had chocolate chip cookies. They are competitive in taste with grocery and c-stores -- not mom's kitchen. Cost 49-64], another 15+ grams of fat and 300+ calories.

* I did kind of like the McDonaldland animal-type cookies. They're fun, clever and OK.

* My favorite was a brand-new dessert, Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie, with beautiful packaging showing all these nice fresh strawberries. It tasted really artificial, so I read the ingredients. It took half the afternoon with 107 words! With good-sounding stuff like xanthan gum and/or locust bean gum, sodium caseinate, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60 (prefer 70 myself), polyglycerol esters, dipotassium phosphate. Also, palm kernel and coconut oils (which almost sound good at this point), strawberries (OK!), glyceryl lacto esters and sodium silico aluminate. What ever happened to pure ingredients you could pronounce?

* At this point I started passing second units of some of the chains I'd already visited. Am I glad the car didn't turn into the parking lot! I then got a third diet soda, which tasted pretty good.

* Many of the chains have shakes, frozen yogurt, sundaes, cones. OK. Average

* One small ray of hope. A Fudge Grande -- Choco Taco from, you guessed it, Taco Bell. Innovative, fun, good tasting, portable, relevant and refreshing.

So where is creativity? Where is improvement with the millions spent of R & D and Marketing G & A. Is there no market for desserts? Have kids (of all ages) stopped eating desserts? Does no one snack anymore? Or have chains just been busy doing other things? Have desserts just not gotten to the top of the priority list in the last couple of years or decades? Pretty sorry situation!

OK, back to the story. Stuffed, I began driving home and found myself passing the local university. I started reminiscing about how bad the food was in college (kids still say this). So I stopped in. Run by ARA. They have a whole dessert section. Made from scratch. Pastry chef. Fresh-made deep dish apple pie with crunch topping and a piece of sharp cheddar cheese, homemade carrot cake a la mode, etc. And, best of all, a Chewy-Choco-Carmel-Marshmallow-Popcorn Bar. I found some entrepreneurial spirit, energy and youth! The lesson: There is a big opportunity for someone to develop a dessert business that will increase average tickets, create an off-hours snack daypart, bring more people and families in for the evening meal and add more takeout and take home.

To accomplish this, start thinking of a "total sell thru." Develop some desserts that customers really like, are healthful, portable and fun. It's easy, really. Then market and merchandise them, especially inside, where they will add color and total appetite appeal. Your customers, crew and friends will love it!

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