“We’re here to talk about flatware loss,” I said frankly to Dave Lazarus, the manager of the Lake-View Restaurant in South Burlington. It felt like a conversational-crutch that someone would employ when terribly desperate at a cocktail party…

“Enough about the weather, have you heard about the flatware loss that restaurants endure these days?”
“No!? Go on!”

But today this was not a crutch and this was not to pass time at a cocktail party; Ashley Bell and I were engaged in market research for our latest MIDD CORE case study: Flatware Recovery System, Inc (FRS). Just down the road, at a different restaurant, Kazuaki Okumura and Alex Kent, our other group members, were engaged in a similar conversation. We were on a mission to size up the issue of flatware loss in area restaurants including: their annual cost, the frequency of flatware reorders, the mechanisms in place to reduce loss, and possible solutions.

FRS, a company owned and operated by entrepreneur and inventor John King, is a company that sells the Flatware Detector. This piece of equipment is a metal detector that fastens to the top of a standard 33 gallon trashcan and alerts the wait staff or dish crew if/when flatware falls into the trashcan during busing or plate scraping. Not only that, it comes with a built in counter! (I know…I should probably go into sales.)

While it may feel like flatware loss does not deserve a $500, battery operated, metal detecting solution, research says otherwise. As described in our case study handout, and backed by some of Alex’s 50+ phone calls, large national chains (like Denny’s) suffer, on-average, $8,000-$12,000 annually in flatware loss. Despite these figures and John’s innovative solution, Flatware Detectors are not exactly selling like Grand Slams®.

Each MIDD CORE group had the same task, present a plan to take FRS to the next level. Some groups described solutions that included alternative applications like lost tools in the auto repair industry, focusing on diners, or enhancing FRS’s marketing practices. While we had numerous ideas and possible solutions, we realized they all came back to one issue: resources. John had already spent $180,000 of his own retirement money on FRS and was not prepared to spend more. At the same time, he wanted to take FRS to the next level.

Our group’s solution was simple and direct: network. Find some investors, bring them on board, and let them share their knowledge, contacts, and financial resources with FRS. With these newfound assets, all of our recommended next steps became possible including: hiring direct sales people, reformatting marketing, outsourcing labor, and redesigning the product to include a magnet and a metal detector. We also recommended focusing sales efforts on national chains because of their significantly larger losses compared to locally owned and managed restaurants.

The presentation of our solution went smoothly. Kazu introduced our group, our roadmap, and our findings from market research. I offered status quo analysis of FRS using the Timmons Model. Ashley presented the solution, the reasons for that solution, and discussed how networking would impact the Timmons Model. Finally, Alex offered an actionable plan that FRS should follow after securing investment.

At the end of the day, Whit and Ernie presented our group with congratulations, a voucher for dinner to anywhere in Middlebury, and a $1000 check to be donated to the charity of our choosing. With smiles on our faces we accepted the awards and made reservations for Fire and Ice.

Sunday night came and the four of us indulged in a terrific meal at Fire and Ice. Our conversation carried throughout the courses as we enjoyed our salads, steaks, drinks, and dessert. We were happy with our effort, our focus, and the nice end to a first week of MIDD CORE. As we finished up our meal and headed to the door we passed the manager who was closing out for the night. I paused and said, “hi, I just have a quick question about flatware loss…”

...more to come on our donation decision.

Dave Campbell '09
MIDD CORE