Lumped together, customers looking for gluten-free, kosher, vegan and vegetarian options in restaurants represent a large and growing clientele. If you cater to those who hold these dietary preferences, or would if you could make a decent buck off them, become familiar with the new Food Community app from Nommunity. It helps these customers find you.
Many restaurants offer meals these customers are looking for, but don’t publicize their availability well. Operators count on potential patrons scouring their websites to discover if suitable items are on the menu. Often, the pertinent information is available but not easily accessible, or maybe the menu shown on a website is a little out of date. That’s why restaurants get so many phone inquiries from people who have these specific food needs, particularly vegans and those in search of gluten-free meals.
Nommunity’s Food Community app enables customers to interact with each other to find out whether restaurants like yours can give them what they want. “The Food Community app connects you with people who share a common food lifestyle and provides information and links to the best choices for your diet,” says JJ Koch, c.e.o. and cofounder of Nommunity.
The company says its national restaurant finder application “gives users detailed information about nearby food choices. Unlike traditional search engines, which rely on vendor-provided data and keyword optimizations, Nommunity provides curated, filtered data that has been ‘vetted’ by members of the community, who decide which restaurants are relevant and appropriate for their needs.”
So how does information about your restaurant get on this app? Nommunity c.t.o. Zachary Wiles says it works like this:
“We crawl the web for as much data as we can and also allow anyone to submit restaurants. Then, we use a crowd-sourced approach to vet the data. As we are in the initial stages of our user interfaces, sometimes this means someone calls the restaurant for further details. In the long run, we aim to be the primary source of the extremely granular data on restaurants offering which types of food and to what extent, right down to the dish.
“All of this is focused on and empowered by an active community, and as that grows, it enhances the quality of the information in our tools,” Wiles says.
Those who adhere to gluten-free, kosher, vegan and vegetarian diets probably aren’t the primary focus of your restaurant. But if you have items tailored to their needs, Nommunity looks like it could be a good way to let potential patrons know about it. You can post your information by going to Nommunity's website.
How big a market are we talking about here? A 2012 Gallup study found that eight percent of single people are vegetarian, as are five percent of married people. An additional two percent of people identify themselves as vegan. Estimates of the number of U.S. diners who are gluten-sensitive range from two to six percent.
In total, it’s a decent-sized slice of the population, especially when you consider how few dining options they have, or at least know about. If many of them live near you and start using Food Community to find out the best places to eat, this free app could deliver a steady flow of customers to your restaurant.
You can download Nommunity by going to the iTunes app store.
