Consistency vs Growth & Improvement
It is a debate I have all the time (with myself lol). How important is consistency versus growth or improvement? Conventional wisdom within the food industry is that consistency is king. People try your product, hopefully enjoy it, and then expect it to stay the same forevermore - ie. change leads to disappointment.
This is certainly true for packaged food products sold in grocery stores. You make thousands of "units", and not only does your customer expect consistency, but so does your production crew. When you are cranking out food widgets as efficiently as possible, any change can lead to major problems - "they're sticking to the roller today, AHHHH"! - or insert random food production problem you never new existed. As a result, you do extensive R&D, arrive at your perfect formula, and manage inconsistency. Challenges arise when nature invariable doesn't play along. "This brown rice syrup from Pakistan has a higher dextrose equivalent, quick, adjust the cook time or whatever to maintain CONSISTENCY." I lived in this world with Cocomels and it was a big deal.
Now with soup, you can probably guess I'm embracing another approach: not trying to override nature, and allowing my skills as a soup maker to grow. This is where you come in dear customer - your feedback is important.
As you hopefully know, my goal is to embrace the nature of real food (pun intended). This is food made like it was hundreds of years ago, and as a result the natural variations that come with the seasons, plant variant or grower will be present in the soup. Those may or may not be noticeable as you eat, but my goal is also to embrace the seasons with seasonal offerings when I can (spring lead to Asparagus & Potato for example).
Another goal is to make the best soup I can possibly make, and to get better and better. I hope that my version of any soup I'm making will be better next year than it was this year. We make soup in batches, and so I will occasionally learn something new or get inspiration and slightly adjust a recipe in search of continuous improvement. Does it always improve the soup? Sadly no, but often it does. My goal is make the change barely perceptible so you all don't really notice, but that over time, the quality improves.
Finally, I also want to offer the best quality food and the most reasonable price. That means that I am constantly on the lookout for opportunities to offer value. Does a farmer have an over-abundance of an amazing organic vegetable? Maybe I'll buy that at a discount and offer that instead of something else. Conversely, sometimes an ingredient is experiencing a price spike - rather than pass on that price increase, i'd rather find an alternative that works just as well, or better, and keep pricing consistent.
I am making lots of different soups. To me, the value here comes with continuous improvement, variety, consistent new offerings, embracing the nature of nature over a consistency-first approach. Do you agree? If you ever taste a soup that you've enjoyed it feels like it has gotten worse, PLEASE LET ME KNOW HERE. Your feedback is important as this soup is for you! Thanks for reading :-)
