Breaking news for the full foodservice equipment and supplies distribution channel. Includes information on dealers, distributors, design consultants and multi-unit operators spanning leadership changes, mergers and acquisitions, trends, data and much more.
Fast-casual restaurant chain Farmer Boys promoted David Wetzel to president and chief operating officer from senior vice president of operations. He replaces Karen Eadon, who has retired after six years with the company.
Andrew Allen was promoted to vice president and general manager of Tomlinson Industries, a division of Oneida Hospitality Group.
The Vollrath Company updated the leadership roles within the Wisconsin-based foodservice equipment manufacturer.
Food Service Holdings appointed Abby Weiss to serve as senior marketing manager and Mark Fogarty eastern regional sales manager for the multiline manufacturer that operates such brands as BSI, English Manufacturing and Colorado Custom Stone.
The foodservice industry is a relationship business. It is said so often that it almost sounds cliché. But one foodservice consultant is banking on the relationships he’s developed over the past 20 years combined with his energy and work ethic to serve as the foundation for success for a new consulting firm.
Longtime foodservice consultant Ronald Kooser, FCSI, passed away May 29, 2020. The 80-year-old Kooser was a principal at foodservice consulting firm Cini•Little.
W. Dean Kimber is the new CEO Americas for Arc, a manufacturer of tableware items.
Limelight Catering in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood needed a refresh to enhance the way it serves food produced in its commissary kitchen.
There’s no doubt bar operations will eventually spring back to life when communities allow these businesses to reopen. That’s because bars have played a prominent role in American socialization dating all the way back to the colonial period. By surviving Prohibition and even the notorious fern era, bars have proven resilient time and time again. That said, when bars do come back online, bartenders will likely find the post-pandemic world to be different from the last time they shouted last call.
A number of operators have shifted their business models to at least temporarily include meal kits and pantry items in an effort to increase revenue. This follows a trend that was in full bloom prior to the pandemic. By 2022, research firm Statistica expects the meal kit market to more than double, reaching $11.6 billion dollars. In the last half of 2018, 14.3 million households purchased meal kits, up from 3.8 million households in 2017.
The brakes slammed business to a halt for many food trucks early on in the COVID-19 crisis as the types of business and social gatherings which drive traffic also came to a screeching stop. But in many states, food trucks, like other off-premises foodservice operations, have been deemed essential. They continue to serve customers (queued up 6 feet apart) and have stepped up to provide mobile foodservice solutions for healthcare and other frontline workers.