MFHA releases marketing guide, celebrates diversity leaders

Nation's Restaurant News, June 11, 2007 by Dina Berta

CHICAGO -- Black Americans ages 13 to 39 are considered part of the "hip hop generation," a group of 45 million consumers with $10 billion in spending power that savvy restaurateurs should be ready to target, according to a new marketing guide by the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance.

That fact was among the many nuggets of demographic information found in "The African-American Guide," a pamphlet intended to help restaurant operators reach potential customers and employees from diverse backgrounds. The MFHA released the guide during the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show.

The guide is the second in a continuing series of booklets produced by the nonprofit MFHA. It follows a guide that focused on the Hispanic market, which debuted last fall in Dallas at the Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference, an annual event produced by Nation's Restaurant News. MFHA will release another marketing guide for the Asian-American community at its annual conference this summer in San Francisco, and the organization is working on marketing guides that look at gay and lesbian consumers and consumers with disabilities.

"The guides are part of our ongoing promotion to help the industry find its workforce as well as in selling and communicating to minorities and under-represented groups," said Gerry Fernandez, MFHA founder and president.

The guides are being created in cooperation with PepsiCo Foodservice. Research detailed in the African-American guide came from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Census, Packaged Facts, the Kaiser Family Foundation, SpikeDDB Lifestyles, and other marketing firms and studies.

The booklet includes demographic information, like population densities--54.7 percent of blacks live in the South--and facts about age groups, such as that black Americans ages 40 and older are considered the "Civil Rights generation" and value community, religion and a strong work ethic.

"These guides have been very well-received by companies," said Joyce Duesman, senior manager of industry relations for PepsiCo Foodservice.

The guides are part of MFHA's tool kit for operators, said Fernandez, who founded the organization in 1996 to help promote the economic benefits of diversity and inclusion in the industry. MFHA also is working on an industry resource guide that will give an overview of the nation's demographics, income forecast and economic outlook. The association also makes available language guides in Spanish and English.

At a reception for MFHA and alumni of Johnson & Wales University held at the Mid-American Club in Chicago, Fernandez presented the Diversity Leader Awards to Norma Sica, director of supplier diversity at Darden Restaurants, and to Vicki Bunn, owner of Diversity Food Management Inc., a consulting company that provides professional supplier diversity functions to corporations in the industry.

The awards were created to recognize an outstanding corporate visionary and an extraordinary owner of a minority business enterprise, Fernandez said.

MFHA will host its annual conference, "Gateway to Results," Aug. 5-7 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Featured speakers include Alexis Herman, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Guy Kawasaki, former chief innovation officer for Apple Computers.

dberta@nrn.com