The ‘pepperoncini problem’ — and a back-of-the-envelope fix
How a simple question could save Olive Garden $8.5 million a year (… and earn me free minestrone for life?)
Editorial Note: Our past several Substack topics have been pretty heavy. This week, I’m mixing in something much less consequential. No politics, no controversy – but as always, a little bit of crunch. I invite you to join me for a short ride through a question that lingered in my mind long enough to deploy a few surveys and analyze some data. We’ll be back to more meaty discussions next week. Perhaps even over lunch?
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I’ve always loved Olive Garden. And though I know that saying this will sound like an AI-generated Olive Garden ad, it’s been home to so many of our family memories that it’s practically a family member itself.
There are a few things any regular Olive Garden frequenter knows about, like the “say when” dance between server and patron over cheese. This happens multiple times during most visits, following the predictable question asked with grater in hand: “Would you like cheese on that?”
But this column is about one thing Olive Garden servers never ask: “Do you want pepperoncini in your salad?”
I’ll share now why they should, and I won’t bury the lede: Darden, Olive Garden’s parent company, would stand to save about $8.5 million per year by eliminating its ‘pepperoncini problem.’
Based on my not-at-all-limited experience, pepperoncinis arrives in every salad and are almost always left among the remnants the server takes away before delivering a replacement bowl – one that, of course, also includes more unrequited pepperoncinis.
Who eats the pepperoncinis?
To test if my experience was representative of how other people feel, I threw a few questions about Olive Garden salads and pepperoncinis into two large-scale surveys, one in 2017 (national) and a repeat in 2024 (Florida voters). In both cases, with less than a percentage point difference between them, nearly 2 in 3 survey respondents said no, they do not eat pepperoncini even if it arrives in their salad.
To be more precise, just 35% say they eat pepperoncini in their salad, whether at Olive Garden or anywhere else. Pepperoncinis are particularly unpopular among women (just 26% eat them) and young people (23% do so).
To be conservative, I’ll work with the rounded-up assumption that 40% of people who eat salads at Olive Garden want the pepperoncini. After all, there may be some covert pepperoncini eaters out there who don’t like to admit it – or more likely, I want to account for the fact that Olive Garden salads are served for whole tables, meaning some anti-peppers may be seated with those who want them in the communal salad.
So, in no fewer than 60% of Olive Garden salads, the pepperoncinis go to waste. The ratio is one variable needed to calculate just what Olive Garden is losing by failing to have its servers ask guests whether they want the pepperoncini at all.
Here’s where it gets fun.
In 2017, each pepperoncini cost Olive Garden about 7 cents. I know this because a family friend was a manager at our local chain that year and provided me with a copy of their invoices. (I feel no shame that I’ve been curious about this for going on eight years – just a moderate sense of disappointment that it took me this long to write about it.)
Last week, I returned to Olive Garden and asked the current manager if he’d indulge me in updating these figures. He did. Today, bags of around 100 pepperoncinis cost Olive Garden $6.61 – or about 6.6 cents per pepper.
Each Olive Garden salad has at least 2 pepperoncinis in it (at times I’ve found an errant third), at a cost of $0.13 per salad.
How many people order salad to begin with?
So how many people eat salad at Olive Garden, anyway? There are a few ways to estimate that, one of which was through the same survey instrument that revealed the pepperoncini’s selective appeal. Survey says: 53% always eat salad at Olive Garden, while another 24% say they do sometimes and 23% say they never do.
Overall, that’s a lot of salad eating – more so among women (56% always order it) and those over age 45 (59%). In other words, women are the Olive Garden’s most loyal salad eaters, but also the demographic least likely to want the pepperonicinis.
How many Olive Garden salads are sold each year?
Olive Garden operates 924 restaurants in the United States and a total of 949 restaurants worldwide. Reported annual sales were $4.88 billion in 2023, with each guest’s bill averaging $23 (or $46 for two).
So if total sales were $4.88 billion in 2023 and each person’s bill averaged $23, that would mean about 212 million individual meals served at Olive Gardens around the world that year. This estimate is consistent with reports that the chain serves around 700 million breadsticks per year – about 3 per guest.
If, as our survey indicated, about half of all guests ordered one salad per visit, that would add up to 106 million salads per year – which is less than the 165 million salads that Olive Garden itself reported serving in 2010 (which probably accounts for some of the “sometimes” respondents as well as multiple salad orders per visit). To be conservative, I’ll stick with 106 million salads per year.
Putting it together
To rehash these conservative assumptions, we’re working with a baseline of 50% of guests ordering salads (and ordering only one per visit at that, rather than opting for what many indulge as a fully “unlimited” experience).
If each salad includes 13 cents worth of pepperoncini, but only 40% of salad-ordering guests want them, having the servers ask diners if they want pepperoncinis would cut that cost to an average of just 5 cents per salad. That represents a cost savings of 8 cents per salad. Multiply that 8-cent savings over 106 million salads sold, and my favorite chain is wasting $8.5 million per year simply because servers aren’t asking the pepperoncini question.
You might ask, why don’t guests just tell their servers they don’t want pepperoncini? Certainly, plenty of people decline cheese or ask for a salad without dressing. But unlike cheese or dressing on a salad, which are impossible to get rid of once in place, the majority of the 60% of non-pepperoncini eaters won’t waste their breath asking the server to nix the peppers – it’s easy enough just remove or work around them once the salad is there.
I should know; I’m one of the 60% who don’t eat them, don’t want them, and would be happier if the zesty sulfite bombs weren’t there – but I’ve rarely made this request.
Food waste: the bigger picture
Food waste is something Darden should, and does, care about. In 2014, a scathing report by Starboard shredded Darden on various issues including food waste, leading to the first total overthrow of an S&P 500 boardroom. The Darden board was fully ousted at its annual shareholder meeting after rank-and-file investors were convinced that significant change was needed. Of particular interest was this finding from the report, which noted that Darden’s food costs were near the highest in the industry, driven by issues at my favorite chain:
Despite its scale advantage, Darden’s food costs and waste are abnormally high… We believe food waste significantly contributes to Darden’s high food costs, especially food waste at Olive Garden … Given Olive Garden’s pasta focus, food costs should be among the best in the industry.
It’s unclear what other aspects of Darden’s business changed following the board turnover, but food waste remained a top concern.
“Food waste is the largest single component of our waste stream, and we consistently take steps to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfills,” wrote Chairman Eugene Lee and President & CEO Rick Cardenas in their 2023 memo to shareholders.
Olive Garden represents about half of Darden’s total revenue, demonstrating the chain’s significant contribution to its parent company’s successes – and this importance may be even greater now, in the wake of another Darden restaurant, Red Lobster, going through bankruptcy and widespread closings. Any reduction of food waste should be taken seriously.
The conclusion and the beg …
Pepperoncinis are small, but still easy to eat around. Servers already have a lot of things to think about each time they visit a table. But is avoiding the inconvenience of asking the pepperoncini question worth losing a conservative $8.5 million per year?
This leads to a more personal, perhaps selfish question: Would saving Olive Garden that kind of change earn me free soup and salad for life?
If so, hold the pepperoncini. And keep going for another moment with that cheese …
I love thinking like this. I always get extra pepperocinis! I also worked at Olive Garden and it was awful as an employee. Thanks for this one, it is a good example of how a tiny change can have significant impacts.