When he worked at Kraft Foods, Tony Lagana, now president of Culinary Systems Inc., Palm City, Fla., said he always looked at what the fine-dining establishments were doing and considered those items the gold standards. He then would try to develop products as close to those standards as possible. Most restaurant branded foods, he says, are simply national chains moving items into the grocery store and, in that regard, the name is the essential ingredient.
However, the brand should not be the sole consideration. Taste, he notes, cannot take a secondary position. “(The product) has to taste like what the consumer would expect to find in the restaurant. That's where most (restaurant-branded products) fall down.”