Resolve to stay on trend

What are your guests eating now? Well, it’s a new year, so they are trying to eat better, of course. Keeping up with your customers’ efforts to eat better can help your business—and maybe your karma as well.

What’s selling? Food delivery service GrubHub crunched some numbers recently to find out what foods are trending upward (in a word, salads!), and what items are on your guests’ naughty lists for the new year.

Overall, GrubHub saw a spike in healthy food orders including salads, grilled chicken wraps and smoothies. The company also saw a drop in fat-laden items such as desserts and fried foods this month.

The menu items that have gained the most traction this January (versus the two months prior) include:

• Strawberry-banana smoothies—up 17.8 percent

• Grilled chicken wraps—up 17.4 percent

• Grilled chicken salads—up 15.3 percent

• Chopped salads—up 9.3 percent

• Lettuce wraps—up 8.8 percent

The popularity of the following items dropped this month. Here are the figures, compared to the two months prior: 

• Pastrami sandwiches—down 13.9 percent

• Fried pork dumplings—down 12.6 percent

• Chicken pot stickers—down 11.8 percent

• Cheese fries—11 percent

• Cheese omelets—down 10.3 percent

The takeaway? January is the time to expand your salad offerings: Offer them in a variety of ways (including wraps), and with on-trend ingredients including proteins, ethnic ingredients and even seaweed and other functional foods.