Hoffmaster® Joins Wisconsin Restaurant Association

Hoffmaster® is pleased to announce that we are now a Supplier Associate Member of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association (WRA). The WRA has been in existence since 1933 as a not-for-profit trade association dedicated to supporting the foodservice industry.

WRA membership includes thousands of foodservice businesses representing virtually every size and style of establishment in the state. Restaurateur members include:

• Fine dining establishments
• Mom-and-pop supper clubs
• Small cafes
• Fast food outlets
• Corporate chain restaurants
• Institutional food service operations
• Catering businesses
• Hotel and motel food services

In addition to restaurateur and food service operators, WRA has hundreds of Supplier Associate Members like Hoffmaster® that provide goods and services to the restaurant industry. According to Cindy Herbert, Vice President of Marketing for Hoffmaster®, “Through our support of the WRA, we will be able to reach new customers to better understand their needs which will help us develop solution based products and services for the foodservice industry.”

By uniting with the WRA, we have access to information and services to help us better run and promote our businesses. And, a strong membership gives WRA a more powerful voice in pursuing its mission to protect, promote and improve the restaurant industry.

Joining the WRA let’s the state’s licensed restaurateurs know that Hoffmaster® cares about the future of Wisconsin’s restaurant industry!

How the Color Yellow Impacts Our Lives and Our Business

Last month I posted some information on how color impacts our lives and our business. It is fun and important to understand the impact of color! I have decided to provide some insight on the color yellow since we are in the dead of winter here in Wisconsin and I thought a little YELLOW may help!

As you know, yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy. According to color-wheel-pro.com, the color yellow produces a warming effect, invokes a feeling of happiness and stimulates mental activity. Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter, which is why most taxicabs are painted this color. You need to be careful not to overuse the color yellow as it has been known to have a disturbing effect if overused. Yellow is one of the first colors seen and when placed against black; this combination is often used to issue a warning.

Yellow is very effective for attracting attention, so use it to highlight the most important elements of your design. Men usually perceive yellow as a very lighthearted, 'childish' color, so it is not recommended to use yellow when selling prestigious, expensive products to men – nobody will buy a yellow business suit or a yellow Mercedes. Yellow is an unstable and spontaneous color, so avoid using yellow if you want to suggest stability and safety.

Put some yellow in your life when you want:

- Clarity for decision-making
- Relief from 'burnout', panic, nervousness, exhaustion
- Sharper memory and concentration skills
- Protection from lethargy and depression during dull weather

How Color Impacts Our Lives and Our Business

Understanding how color can impact your business and your customers impression of your establishment is critical in today’s competitive business environment. Color will help you distinguish your business from your competitors and is an integral part of your overall identification. Color is often called the “silent salesperson.” It can attract your customer’s eye, convey the overall message of your brand or service, establish your identity and more importantly, it can help you make a sale!

The Marketing team at Hoffmaster® has studied the impact of color for over thirty years and has compiled a very good data base of color impact facts which we use in developing our solid color product offering and use to help us create our stock fashion designs. Since one of our primary goals of our blog is to help Foodservice operators, I thought I would share some of the interesting facts related to the impact of color with you. I will be updating this blog with other color impact facts, so be sure and check back in!

Purple

It is important to look at symbolism with any color, but with purple, it may be more important than you would think. Purple symbolizes power, spirituality, luxury, magic, faith, imagination, sensitivity, royalty, mourning, and sometimes death. It conveys wealth and extravagance. Purple is also one of the hardest colors for the eye to discriminate, making it a poor choice for the food industry but an excellent choice for astrology, magic or a spiritual business.

According to color-wheel-pro.com, the color purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Almost 75 percent of pre-adolescent children surveyed preferred purple to all other colors. Purple is a very rare color in nature; some people consider it to be artificial.

Light purple is a good choice for a feminine design. Bright purple is a good choice when promoting children's products. Light purple evokes romantic and nostalgic feelings. Dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings.

Why Social Media?

Last week we wrote about HOW to get involved with viral marketing via social media. Now we’re going to share our two cents worth on WHY it’s important.

It’s all about inbound marketing – not finding your customers, but allowing your customers to find you. With all the tools available to customers today they seek you out through search engines, blogs, social media, your website, etc. It’s no longer a question of “if” but rather “how” you join the social media landscape. According to QSR Web, Google research has found that 80% of diners use search to decide where to eat, and 52% look online for coupons or special offers for local establishments. This means that your customers are looking for you, so you need to be able to be found! By monitoring social media channels like Twitter and Facebook, you can find people seeking out your services. The best way to guarantee success is to simply be present, honest, creative, and personable. At the end of the day, social networking exists to share opinions and ideas online. And, by all means, have fun!

Yes, It’s Viral, Spread the Word!

It’s that time of year again, when the word “viral” typically means the spreading of nasty colds and flu bugs. But Hoffmaster® is saying, “Bring on the viral!”

Hoffmaster® has worked diligently over the last year to increase its word of mouth, or viral marketing. Over the last 12 months we’ve redesigned our website, launched a monthly e-mail, created our spokesperson Nate Gladmann and entered the following social media sites: Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and this blog. Our goal is to integrate our online marketing efforts with traditional marketing communications such as our annual Product Portfolio, trade publication advertising and printed sales materials.

Hoffmaster® is participating in viral marketing so we invite you to do the same! Your customers are talking, so you should join in. To help you get started, here are five easy “preventative” tips for you to follow to stay healthy this “Viral Season!”

1. Listen First - Newcomers to social media sites should first listen to how people communicate. Each site is different. For example, Twitterers or Tweeps post short blurbs about what’s going on. Facebook friends keep it a little more personal and private.

2. Make a Game Plan - One of the biggest mistakes companies make is joining social media without knowing what they’re game plan is. Determine your goals for interacting. Do you want to increase customer awareness? Do you want to promote certain things? Once you determine why then you can figure out how.

3. Walk Before You Run - Pick one social media site to start with. Once you feel like you’ve gotten the hang of it then venture on to your next challenge.

4. Give People a Reason to be Viral - Make sure that your topics are interesting enough that people want to talk about it. Make sure that the communication is a two-way street. You don’t want to be talking at your audience; you want to be talking with them to keep them engaged.

5. Have Fun - Run contests or promotions, give coupons, etc. Just keep the energy high and the momentum going. Remember that high quality content will help build relationships with your followers so have fun with them!

Hand Towel Hygiene

The cold and flu season is upon us. Now more than ever before people are extremely aware of spreading germs, preventing the spread of flu and hand washing. I know everyone is aware of the proper method of hand washing, but do you know the best way to dry your hands and why it is so important?

According to an article from Tissue World by Roger Gaudreault, PhD, moisture left on hands not properly washed and dried is the single largest determining factor for hand hygiene and the spread of germs.

So what is the best method of drying your hands; is it air dryers, disposable guest towels or reusable cloth towels? Some of you might be surprised to learn that the most sanitary way to dry your hands is using disposable guest towels.

The reason disposable guest towels are the best option is because they minimize the spread of bacteria compared to air dryers or reusable towels. When you use a disposable guest towel, any bacteria remaining on your hands after washing is transferred from your wet hands to the disposable guest towel. Since it is a single use disposable product, you do not have to worry about the spread of germs.

I’m sure you may think air dryers would be the better choice, but what you may not realize is that air dryers can potentially spread bacteria back onto your hands or body as well as in the surrounding area. I don’t think I need to give you a lot of detail on how ineffective reusable towels are, but wanted you to know that when cloth gets wet, its absorbency drops and bacteria are only reduced by drying hands with absorbent materials.

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both recommend that hands be thoroughly dried using disposable guest towels. So look for disposable guest towels when using a public washroom or add them to your home when entertaining guests. Keep everyone happy and healthy this cold and flu season and use a Hoffmaster® guest towel to dry your hands!

For more information about Hoffmaster® disposable guest towels check out our website.

Hoffmaster® H1N1 Toolkit

Now, more than ever before, there’s a huge focus on sanitation. This focus is very broad and expands from your home, to your children’s school, to college campuses, to restaurants. Disposable, single-use products will help keep surfaces sanitary and you and your family healthy.

Single-use tabletop products such as placemats and napkins are key when talking about sanitation and disease prevention.

Single-use products came into use as the answer to the spread of infectious and contagious diseases at a time when common drinking cups, plates, and utensils were the norm in society. In fact, the first single-use foodservice product was called the Health Cup, a name that described the cup’s primary benefit and value. It was sold to schools, hospitals, tubercular facilities and other places where infectious diseases could be communicated through unsanitary reusables.

Today, a hundred years after the invention of the Health Cup, the U.S. FDA’s Food Code requires foodservice operations to use single-use products whenever a facility’s dishwashing capability is compromised by equipment breakage, power failures, or inadequate dishwashing (such as low water temperature, weak detergent, etc.). For this reason alone, all foodservice operators need to have a supply of single-use foodservice packaging products on hand.

The sanitary benefits of single-use products have been proven in many studies over the years, and most recently in two studies: one in 2003 in Las Vegas conducted for the Food and Packaging Institute by the Clark County Public Health District that compared the sanitary aspects single-use and permanent ware items in Las Vegas eating establishments, and one in 2006 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, conducted for the Food and Packaging Institute by the University of Wisconsin that studied tabletop bacterial contamination of restaurants that used placemats versus uncovered tables.

The Las Vegas study found “reusable foodservice items had higher microbiological levels than disposable items” and the Wisconsin study found that “single-use placemats were shown, on average, to have over seven times fewer bacteria than uncovered tables in restaurants.”

The reason that single-use products are more sanitary than their reusable counterpart is simple: very often dishwashers don’t heat water to 140° C, the temperature necessary to assure sanitation. In some instances, the water is hot enough, but not enough detergent is added. In other cases, permanent ware is recontaminated by workers when they place items back into storage.