Food with Serial Numbers
Over lunch at a recent conference, I noticed that the catered cakes actually had serial numbers!
What you’re seeing is a flat chocolate shell sitting on the back of a piece of mousse cake. Look carefully at the bottom left of the chocolate:
Yes, that’s a serial number (sorry for the blurry iPhone photos). What’s not shown is that the chocolate also had a brand label printed on somewhere else. Neither of these things belong on fine food, which is what this purported to be.
Serial numbers help with inventory tracking and things like that, but that is rarely customer facing. Seth Godin had a recent post about serial numbers, but his best advice was simply “Think hard about whether you need a serial number at all.” Diners do not care that your desserts have inventory tracking codes that help you or your suppliers find them more easily. They just want to be wowed by taste and presentation.
This cake should never have left the kitchen.
