One On One With: How American Dining Creations adapted its salad bar and other café concepts to meet pandemic concerns and restrictions

American Dining Creations (ADC) is an FM Top 50 firm that was growing steadily and nearing $200 million in annual revenues when the coronavirus pandemic struck earlier this year. Like just about every other dining provider in onsite foodservice, the company had to adapt to the new realities, which included not only restrictions on how food can be served but also on accommodating a newly nervous—and reduced—customer base.

Compounding the problem for ADC is the reality that its Greens & Grains salad bar concept was its flagship brand, a mostly self-serve platform offering trendy healthy pick-your-own options that was impossible to continue in the new environment. So the company did a pivot and transformed Greens & Grains into a modified packaged format that still offers diners customization options but in a way that meets regulatory and psychological safety requirements.

Packaged salad components customers can mix and match are key to the newly adapted Greens & Grains salad bar concept from American Dining Creations.

The modified salad bar concept was piloted in several of ADC’s corporate dining client locations and received significant positive response, including café revenue increases and with Greens & Grains generating almost half the business in some locations.

We spoke with ADC’s vice president of marketing, Nick Salvagni, about the evolved Greens & Grains concept and the other ways the company has adapted its operations to meet the current environment.

Related:New ways to satisfy salad bar-craving customers in healthcare food service

Food Management · How American Dining Creations adapted its salad barto meet pandemic concerns and restrictions