It isn’t every day that you earn the kind of praise that makes you want to blush, but such was the case after our recent confab in Chicago, the Foodservice Equipment & Design Global Thought Leadership Summit.

The idea was to bring together readers of this magazine with those of our sister magazine, restaurant development + design, for a discussion around topics of interest to each. We attracted operators, consultants, dealers, designers, manufacturer reps, service agents, architects and others involved professionally with foodservice equipment and design (the F-E-D in FED) for two days of original content and sharing in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

The results were pretty special. I encourage you to listen and watch the dynamic speakers assembled for this event, curated by our own editorial director, Joe Carbonara, along with special contributor Mary Chapman. Check out pictures from the event and videos of the presentations, most no more than about 18 minutes, without a paywall at fedthoughtleadership.com.

Best in Class-Update

For 17 years in the October issue, FE&S has faithfully brought you the Best in Class (BIC). I’ve been privileged to be a part of the BIC process since its inception way back when Reed Business Information owned the publication. In the early years, the surveys were very simple: “Who makes the best fill-in-the-blank?” Each year, we added more and more questions based on what you, our readers, felt was pertinent in selecting a best-in-class manufacturer for specific pieces of equipment, supplies and the like. The data was understandably valuable to both readers and manufacturers. We expanded the study over time to drill down to the specific reasons why respondents answered the way they did for each category. What it evolved into was a massive study that took three 45-minute sessions to complete.

While undeniably data rich and valuable, it was also cumbersome and difficult to get people to complete the study. Like many pollsters discover today, with so many distractions competing for our modern attention, we have encountered pushback from even our most engaged readers. The ask just became too much and in response to reader feedback we have decided to step back and retool the study.

With sincere thanks to those of you who did take the time to complete this year’s survey, we have decided not to publish a Best in Class list this year. We are listening to our readership and moving forward with a revamped study for 2019. We believe that the new streamlined study will garner higher participation levels and continue to yield a rich database of information.