Tasting the Toasties

I have been talking round the subject of toasties for quite some time, and we have recently finally acquired the means to make them happen and have set about making them great.

The first step, as is the tradition, is the tasting. It’s been the cornerstone of Jabberwocky R&D right from the start, and every time we do it the information seems to get better. There are, we found, several crucial factors that could cause problems down the line, corroborated by further research from our survey, the infographic of which is still awaiting my pleasure. It boils down to this: People are wary of new foods, odd foods and unfamiliar foods. Interested, but wary. Once tasted and suitably impressed they are happy to part with cash, but getting through that first boundary of unfamiliarity might prove difficult. Let me just magic some graphs to back that up..

This was taken from our tasters as a first response, with only the titles of the toasties to go by. You may want to know what we actually served, rather than just enjoying the cryptic clues on the graph. We can do that too.

Savoury:
Chorizo, mozzarella and jalapeño toastie
Pastrami, Gouda and gherkin toastie
Brie, slow roast tomato and basil toastie
Beef and onion toastie (actually more a bolognese toastie)

Sweet:
Banoffee toastie
Black Forest toastie (forest fruits with morello cherries and chocolate fudge sauce)

Sides:
Onion Rings
Red Onion Salad
Spicy Wedges

Clearly chorizo was carrying us here, because much like bacon, everything is better for its addition. Especially the sweet toasties were meeting with something approaching hostility, and the pastrami was tipped to be pretty poor. This is what customers think when they first see the board, and that they will shop accordingly. Interesting stuff.
Next stats!

Quick clarification; expectations were pegged at 5, so anything above your expectations of the dish is proportionately above that and vice versa. So while the chorizo was clearly pretty good, the pastrami was the dark horse with gherkin and cheese. We also need to rethink the wedges (not spicy enough from the written feedback).

The challenge clearly lies in getting people to go for the unexpected. We need to encourage those brave people willing to risk approximately £3 on something different, and I am not quite sure how we do it without bribing them with samples. Perhaps we should bribe them with samples. If you have any suggestions then I am literally figuratively all ears.

It turns out, if you have a little more appetite for statistics then a sordid glance at the aforementioned survey results is also mildly interesting. This, much larger sample group (I think we had 115 responses, thank you very much if you were one of them) still agrees that while the different food looks appealing, you will ultimately still go with what you know.

It leaves us with the cheese and ham toastie still firmly on the menu, and home-made onion rings as my new favourite snack. The first toastie event, for anyone wishing to try them, will be the Uttoxeter Food & Drink festival on the 23rd and 24th of June, the second is the week after in Stratford upon Avon. In the mean time I leave you with news that toasties, much like everything else, look better on a cake stand.