Redefining product development in restaurant kitchens

Abstract

This study was carried out to design a new and practical domain-specific model that can be used in restaurant kitchens. The main purpose of the research is to propose a new model based on the ‘product development model’—which is typically addressed in the literature from an industrial and marketing perspective—and designed specifically for restaurant kitchens. In other words, the proposed model can be considered an adaptation of existing product development models for restaurant kitchens. In this context, a two-stage research study was conducted; in the first stage of the research, interview and observation methods were used to obtain the opinions of professionals. The interviews were conducted with culinary professionals, and the observations were carried out in a Michelin-starred business example. As a result of the thematic analysis, the ‘product development in restaurant kitchens’ model was created and the name ‘COOKFLOW’ was proposed for this model. Subsequently, a quasi-experimental observation was carried out to understand the functionality of the model, in which all other conditions were controlled, and only the product development training variable was manipulated. Content analysis revealed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of diversity of thought and the number of ideas generated, and the effectiveness of the proposed model was proven to some extent.