Business Description/Company History Firm Analysis Passport Bistro is part of the WKU Restaurant Group, under the management of Aramark Corporation. Aramark is an international company and first started working with WKU in 1997, providing food services and staff. They currently manage twenty-five prepared food and grab-and-go locations on campus.  Passport Bistro is located on the first floor of the Honors College and International Center which opened in fall 2015.  The restaurant opened for business November 3rd, 2015. The menu has a variety of breakfast, lunch, and dessert options, as well as a number of different coffee based beverages. Most of the menu items are considered international cuisine. Passport Bistro is open from the hours of 10:00AM-2:00PM Monday through Friday and is closed on the weekends. They use two employees per shift and operate in 1 shift per day increments. The store is managed by Vedrana Forsythe who works under the supervision of our contact Steve Hyong. Industry Analysis Aramark is part of the Food Service Contracting Industry in the US (NAICS code # 722310). Food Service Contracting companies provide food services at institutional, governmental, commercial or industrial locations. Examples of services locations include airports, food courts, college and university cafeterias and recreation and sports venues. The industry analysis that follows will focus on the college and university dining. In a study conducted and concluded September 2016, the revenue growth rate from 2012-2017 was 2.0% and the projectioned rate for 2017-2022 was 1.8%. Revenues were consistently in the $40 billion range for the last 4 years. The educational segment of the Food Service Contracting Industry is expected to sustain slow grow due to increased enrollment rates and increased cost of attendance. The most recent 2017 statistics on food service Some current trends existing in the industry are a steady consistent growth rate, as a whole in the maturity phase of its life cycle, high concentration and competitive levels, high turnover, and low profit margin. The industry exists in a highly competitive environment which will only increase in level of competition. The  number of establishments within the industry is expected to increase at a 2.9% average annual rate through 2022. This projected rate of establishment growth is slightly higher than the rate of enterprise growth which indicates existing operators (in our case, Aramark) will add locations at a faster rate than new entrants will join the industry.  Over this same period employment within the industry is projected to grow at an annualized 2.4%.   SWOT Analysis After conducting industry research and meeting with Mr. Steve Hoyng, RDM at Aramark, ABNT International Consulting team constructed a SWOT analysis to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for WKU Dining’s Passport Bistro location. · Strengths · Quality of Ingredients -- Passport Bistros’ food options c ...

1. Business Description/Company History
Firm Analysis
Passport Bistro is part of the WKU Restaurant Group, under the
management of Aramark Corporation. Aramark is an
international company and first started working with WKU in
1997, providing food services and staff. They currently manage
twenty-five prepared food and grab-and-go locations on campus.
Passport Bistro is located on the first floor of the Honors
College and International Center which opened in fall 2015.
The restaurant opened for business November 3rd, 2015. The
menu has a variety of breakfast, lunch, and dessert options, as
well as a number of different coffee based beverages. Most of
the menu items are considered international cuisine. Passport
Bistro is open from the hours of 10:00AM-2:00PM Monday
through Friday and is closed on the weekends. They use two
employees per shift and operate in 1 shift per day increments.
The store is managed by Vedrana Forsythe who works under the
supervision of our contact Steve Hyong.
Industry Analysis
Aramark is part of the Food Service Contracting Industry in the
US (NAICS code # 722310). Food Service Contracting
companies provide food services at institutional, governmental,
commercial or industrial locations. Examples of services
locations include airports, food courts, college and university
cafeterias and recreation and sports venues. The industry
analysis that follows will focus on the college and university
dining.
In a study conducted and concluded September 2016, the
revenue growth rate from 2012-2017 was 2.0% and the
projectioned rate for 2017-2022 was 1.8%. Revenues were
consistently in the $40 billion range for the last 4 years. The
educational segment of the Food Service Contracting Industry is
expected to sustain slow grow due to increased enrollment rates
and increased cost of attendance. The most recent 2017

2. statistics on food service
Some current trends existing in the industry are a steady
consistent growth rate, as a whole in the maturity phase of its
life cycle, high concentration and competitive levels, high
turnover, and low profit margin. The industry exists in a highly
competitive environment which will only increase in level of
competition. The number of establishments within the industry
is expected to increase at a 2.9% average annual rate through
2022. This projected rate of establishment growth is slightly
higher than the rate of enterprise growth which indicates
existing operators (in our case, Aramark) will add locations at a
faster rate than new entrants will join the industry. Over this
same period employment within the industry is projected to
grow at an annualized 2.4%.
SWOT Analysis
After conducting industry research and meeting with Mr. Steve
Hoyng, RDM at Aramark, ABNT International Consulting team
constructed a SWOT analysis to analyze the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for WKU Dining’s
Passport Bistro location.
· Strengths
· Quality of Ingredients -- Passport Bistros’ food options
consist of higher quality of ingredients compared to that of
other restaurants’ on campus due to the lack of fried food and
oil based cooking.
· Nutritional Value -- Due to Passport Bistro using higher
quality ingredients as well as healthier cooking options,
Passport Bistros’ food tends to hold more nutritional value than
other campus dining options such as Popeyes, Steak n’ Shake,
or Papa Johns.
· Coffee Stand -- Passport Bistro is one of three of restaurants
on campus to offer specialty coffees in addition to regular
coffee as well as providing food options to the consumer.
· Quick Service/Short Lines -- Passport Bistro offers quick
service time as well as no more than 5-7 people in line,
compared to the sometimes 100+ at other locations on campus

3. · Atmosphere -- Passport Bistro offers one of the best
atmospheres on the entire campus. A consumer can sit down and
eat or drink coffee while they do work or just simply enjoy their
meal in an environment which feels almost private.
· Weaknesses
· Structural Limitations-- Due to the location of Passport Bistro,
they are restricted in a few ways. The first being due to the
space where the restaurant is located. They are unable to install
a large scale ventilation system, which would be used to remove
any smoke/odor/steam from cooking. This stops Passport Bistro
from adding any new food items into their menu that would
require extensive preparation. Not having this type of
ventilation system also means that any pungent or especially
fragrant foods permeate the rest of the building, which contains
many offices.Along with this, expansion of the dining area for
Passport Bistro is not a viable option, and the current seating
which can only hold around 20-25 students would not be enough
to accommodate even a quarter target goal of 325 customers per
day.
· Lack of Foot Traffic -- Most of the locations of the dining
services are based around “central hubs” on campus such as the
libraries, major dormitories, or campus operations buildings.
Passport Bistro is located in the Honors College and
International Center, which originally was planned to be much
larger and have many more classrooms and offices than it has.
This leads to very few students, faculty, or staff walking
through the building compared to other dining options.
· Lack of Diversity in Food Options -- The food offered by
Passport Bistro centers on gyro style foods, so if a consumer
does not like this style there is nothing Passport Bistro offers to
entice them into visiting the establishment.
· Opportunities
· Co-Branding -- Passport Bistro could attempt to merge brands
with a more established name in campus dining such as Da
Vinci’s or Einstein Bros. in order to try and attract a larger
customer base

4. · Product Differentiation -- Passport Bistro currently only sells
food products, they could try and expand their market by
introducing items such as WKU apparel and Merchandise to set
themselves apart from the competition.
· Raise Consumer Awareness -- Passport Bistro needs to to find
a way to make the more consumers aware of the restaurant itself
so they can increase their sales to a profitable level.
· Threats
· High Degree of Competition -- Being one of many restaurants
on campus, the market is highly competitive in terms of
consumers. There are a finite number of consumers deciding
where to eat.
· External Competition -- Along with the restaurants on campus
Passport Bistro also competes in some degree with restaurants
the consumer may choose to attend outside of campus dining
which would in turn cause them a loss of customers.
Owner Objectives
Currently, Passport Bistro’s daily sales levels are substantially
below expectations. In the Fall semester this location averaged
175 customer sales and in the Spring about 100 per day. The
number of sales required to break even would be approximately
300 per day, but the goal would be 400 per day. These goals are
based on the performance of Da Vinci’s restaurant, which is
approximately the same size and has the same kitchen
equipment but manages to attract a much larger number of
consumers through the use of branding and food differentiation.
Management of Passport Bistro would like to at the very least
break even.
Problems/Concerns
Passport Bistro management has requested strategic
recommendations to assist in increasing current sales. In
addition to increasing sales, they have requested any other
recommendations that would increase awareness of Passport
Bistro that would lead to continued growth. The consulting
group has concluded that there is also a problem with the way
that Passport Bistro is marketed and will be addressing that as

5. well. The overarching problem is the lack of customers per a
day needed to break-even on the business much less make a
profit.
Strategic Business Recommendations
The ABNT intends to help increase the number of sales through
use of a customer survey and develop a marketing plan aimed at
increasing foot traffic in the Honors College and International
Center. We also intend to conduct a feasibility study to
determine the costs and benefits of the continued operations
with our recommendations in mind. Based on the survey results
we will build our recommendations. These could be some of our
recommendations to Passport Bistro:
· Since ESLI moved to the International Building, their classes
start at 8:00 am but since Passport Bistro opens at 10:00 am
they are losing out on potential customers. Opening earlies
would be a chance to make more sales.
· Comparing to other restaurants on campus, very few people
recognize the restaurant because Passport Bistro has weak
social media advertising which most other restaurants do not
need because they have existing brand loyalty.
· Because Passport Bistro is not a recognizable brand they could
change it to one of the recognizable brands and along with that,
Passport Bistro should change their menu.
· We intend to find out if having a bus stop right outside the
HCIC would be warranted, to increase pedestrian traffic near
the restaurant.