Fresh Choice, Inc. operates some 50 restaurants in the USA, mainly in California. The company's goal is to create distinctive dining experience that combines the selection, quality, and ambiance of full-service, casual restaurants with the convenience and low-price appeal of traditional buffet restaurants. In essence, the company offers the soups-and-salads concept which should appeal to health-conscious diners who are focused on the nutritional content of their meals.

Fresh Choice restaurants feature high-quality, freshly made specialty and traditional salads, hot pastas, soups, bakery goods, and desserts, offered in a self-service format. Each restaurant includes a salad bar offering specialty tossed and prepared salads with an extensive choice of salad ingredients and dressings. All specialty tossed and prepared salads are clearly marked, and low-fat and fat-free items are prominently identified. Throughout the day, several employees maintain the salad bar and replenish individual salads and ingredients from the opposite side of the salad bar, minimizing interference with customers. Separate exhibition-style cooking areas offer fresh soups, gourmet pizzas, hot pastas, baked potatoes, hot muffins, country-herbed biscuits, hearth-style breads and other bakery goods, and fresh fruits and desserts.

1. You have been charged with the responsibility of opening and operating restaurants outside of the USA based on the same concept. Evaluate Fresh Choice's restaurant concept.

2. Do you think that this product concept can be successfully introduced in your chosen country without any modification? Explain your rationale.

3. What are the factors which may facilitate or impede the acceptance of the soups-and-salads concept among foreign (local) consumers? Explain your rationale.

4. In the case that the existing concept is not totally appropriate, what are the modifications that you will make? Explain your rationale.