Bucking a flat trend among restaurants, barter exchange business, Bartercard, has increased its trade volume in the foodservice industry by more than 20 per cent over a 12 month period.

In 2009, restaurants were average $1.8m (trade dollars) per month, but now average $2.2m per month. And while the cash takings of the 674 member restaurants haven’t been as impressive, they have recorded strong trade volume with Bartercard.

Sails Restaurant Owner Greg Anderson bought the Restaurant in 2008 before the explosion of the GFC and says it’s been tricky balancing the cash outlay involved with incentivising staff.

“Motivating and rewarding my staff is a top priority for me. I always try to show them my appreciation in some way or another but over the last two years cash has been hard to come by,” Mr Anderson said.

Seven months ago Mr Anderson heard about the cash savings associated with Bartercard, he became a member and hasn’t looked back since.

“I heard on the grapevine that Bartercard brings in bums on seats. In other words Bartercard utilises my excess capacity. And I realised that by converting the downtime in my restaurant to Bartercard Trade Dollars I could buy almost anything I could want through the network – it was the perfect way for me to afford to buy my staff gifts and incentives,” he said.

“I wanted to give my Restaurant Manager and Head Chef a boost so I bought them each hospitality tickets to go to the upcoming NRL Grand Final at ANZ Stadium.

“All up, it’s cost me about T$7,000 Trade Dollars but I’m not spending cash so it has allowed me to be more generous. My staff are happier, which makes them want to stay with me longer,” he said.

Mr Anderson also bought a restaurant voucher for his Bookkeeper and a hotel voucher for his Head Waiter.

According to Mr Anderson the use of Bartercard has increased his total available cash by up to 20% each month over the last seven months.

Director of Sydney-based human resources consulting company Human Resources Focus Belinda McLean is also a Bartercard member and believes that like cash Trade Dollars are a good option to motivate staff.

Chatswood based Bartercard Sydney North Franchise Principal Linda Squires believes that Sails Restaurant has been clever in using Trade Dollars to boost their staff morale.

“As Greg gets used to the system, he’ll soon realise the more he uses his Bartercard to reward his staff, the more cash he’ll save – because he’s just using his idle capacity,” Ms Squires said.

Cookie co-owner, Domenico Del Priore, said, “The barter system has proved to be a great success and is helping to offer an alternative and more sustainable way of food production, distribution and consumption. And now we’re extending the system to offer a fruit and veg collection service direct from growers’ own gardens and allotments.

“Whether you grow apples, pears, plums or other fruits in your garden, as these become ripe, we’ll come and pick the fruit from your trees and give you jam back!

“This week our fridge is already groaning with an abundance of gooseberries, blueberries, red berries, zucchini, herbs and a chest of lettuce. From these and other ingredients supplied through our Urban Gardener Barter Food Exchange we’ve made a batch of delicious gooseberry jam, courgette and ginger jam and a variety of soups and grilled vegetable dishes.

“But we’re always on the look-out for more produce. So if you’re interested and would like to participate and help develop an exchange of local food production, we would love to hear from you.”

See the full story at http://www.allmediascotland.com/media_releases/26392/cookie-s-urban-gardener-barter-food-exchange-springs-into-summer-with-launch-of-fruit-and-veg-collection-service

Cookie co-owner, Domenico Del Priore, said, “The idea is that we will use your lovingly-grown produce in our restaurant. We also have a stand outside which we would like to fill with local produce to offer a truly alternative means of supply to our community. So if you are interested and would like to participate and help develop an exchange of local food production, we would love to hear from you.”

See the full story at http://www.allmediascotland.com/media_releases/25022/cookie-launches-urban-gardener-barter-food-exchange

Central to the restaurant’s concept is its “foraging program,” through which Bacon and Kim, along with the help of a friend named Eugene Ahm, encourage diners to bring in fresh fruits and vegetables from their gardens. Then, Kim and Bacon will create a dish, pastry or drink around those ingredients.

“We ask people to come in and we’ll do a tasting in the kitchen, then we can figure out how to use it that day — maybe in an agua fresca — or maybe we give it to our pastry chef and it becomes a pie tomorrow,” says Bacon. “Or it’s super fresh and we throw it in a salad right there. Then we work out a little barter and trade system with the forager.”

Their first forager came in Tuesday. Her name was Sonya. “She brought 15 lemons, and for those she got some cookies and a slice of flatbread,” says Bacon, who added that the lemons were made into lemonade and are currently on the menu as Sonya’s Silver Lake Lemonade.  In that way, anyone who brings something in gets a little shout-out on the menu.

See the full story at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2010/02/restaurant-opening-forage-in-silver-lake-calls-all-home-gardners.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimesdailydish+(Daily+Dish+Blog)

In the tongue-in-cheek ad, the chain expressed concerns about the trickle-down effects of bankers receiving shares rather than cash. Among those purportedly affected are personal shoppers and pet psychiatrists. The ad also noted that “massive amounts of steak and lobster” could remain uneaten.

The catch? You must bring in original stock certificates to exchange for meals.  See the full story at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0314320320100203?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

And how does all this manifest itself in a bad economy when we find ourselves with “more time than money and skills that we still want to put to use?”

“We barter,” says the Food Channel, which predicts “we’ll see more of the barter system come into play now that technology can assist with the connections.”

And how does all this manifest itself in a bad economy when we find ourselves with “more time than money and skills that we still want to put to use?”
“We barter,” says the Food Channel, which predicts “we’ll see more of the barter system come into play now that technology can assist with the connections.”

See the full story at http://www.echo-pilot.com/lifestyle/food/x1689193458/What-food-trend-spotters-see-for-2010

]]> http://www.barternewsweekly.com/2010/01/07/food-channel-predicts-more-barter-1350/feed/ 0 http://www.barternewsweekly.com/2009/12/18/nubarter-featured-in-sun-sentinal-1206/ http://www.barternewsweekly.com/2009/12/18/nubarter-featured-in-sun-sentinal-1206/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:27:41 +0000 King of the Wild Frontier http://www.barternewsweekly.com/?p=1206 NuBarter, with offices in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, was featured in a business article in the Florida Sun Sentinal. The article outlines a $90,000 construction trade a restaurant consumated through NuBarter.

“We’re helping them survive the recession,” says Karen Roumay, owner of the Delray Beach-to-Deerfield Beach territory for NuBarter.

“Danielle could never have done her renovation. Who has $90,000 in their pocket right now and who is lending $90,000 right now?” Roumay says.

Itex and Trade First are also mentioned in the article. See the full story at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-marcia-barter-20091216,0,2604188.column

]]> http://www.barternewsweekly.com/2009/12/18/nubarter-featured-in-sun-sentinal-1206/feed/ 0 http://www.barternewsweekly.com/2009/11/12/british-restaurant-embraces-in-house-barter-program-762/ http://www.barternewsweekly.com/2009/11/12/british-restaurant-embraces-in-house-barter-program-762/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:10:12 +0000 King of the Wild Frontier http://www.barternewsweekly.com/?p=762 Artichoke, a restaurant in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, UK, recently created an in-house barter program. Chef Laurie Gear encourages locals to bring in their beautiful produce in return for a free glass of wine, and the privilege of seeing their vegetables transformed into cutting-edge cuisine (which is not free).

Gear’s regulars hand over prizeworthy pumpkins, squashes, wild garlic, curly kale, rosemary and mint.

Gear says there’s no real financial benefit from using donated produce. “It’s just something we can do because we’re a local, neighbourhood restaurant,” he explains.

The informal bartering started some years ago when one regular had a glut of vegetables. But since the restaurant reopened this year after a fire, Gear has become even more passionate about using local produce.

Read the full story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/12/fruit-vegetables-restaurant-barter

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