The shutdown of indoor dining due to coronavirus favored quick-service restaurants, but that did not mean full-service concepts sat idly by.
It’s difficult to peer through the fog of uncertainty surrounding our collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic to see exactly what the post-crisis world will look like. Even the most fundamental aspects of our lives, like school and work, are subject to profound changes as a result of the upheaval that we have all experienced.
Field Service Technician, Commercial Parts and Service
Master Certified Technician, Gary’s East Coast Service, Oxford, Conn.
Throughout my life, I have always been close to my father. As a kid, if he was building shelves in the basement, I was with him. My father was the best man in my wedding more than 27 years ago. Based on this relationship, when the chance came to join the manufacturers’ representative firm that he and his partner Jack Kappus founded — SESCO — I jumped at it.
For years businesses large and small have extolled the virtues of thinking outside the proverbial box of conventional wisdom. Business leaders have lauded nimbleness in the face of rapidly changing competitive landscapes and oftentimes fickle consumer habits.
For those of you who were able to tune in to our FED Lunch & Learn series on Tuesdays in October, you no doubt garnered a slew of great takeaways from our array of esteemed presenters and panelists. Their ideas about the transformative nature of the time we find ourselves in and the changes we are likely to see next in the world of foodservice equipment and design were both thought provoking and timely.
Following her 15-year position as director of Food and Nutrition at Pottstown Memorial Medical Center in Pennsylvania, Mary Cooley, RD, turned her attention to senior care.
On the surface, for-profit foodservice may seem to have little in common with correctional foodservice. In reality, though, the two segments face many of the same challenges, such as budget and labor issues.
The aspect of the foodservice industry that’s most consistent now is inconsistency. Consumers’ comfort level with the coronavirus varies, as do the rules and regulations from one region to another.
Restaurants are not alone facing enormous COVID-19-related challenges as they strive to serve their communities.
How to rebuild trust with customers in a global pandemic.
There are many versions of the old adage “When one door closes, find a window,” all with the same meaning.
From launching a 100% plant-based food truck to moving retail foodservice to the point where 50% of sales come from self-order devices, Zia Ahmed continues to keep The Ohio State University on the forefront of the trendline.
The foodservice equipment industry has done a good job of adding technology to specific pieces of equipment. But the industry has not done as good a job of using technology to improve business operations.
As the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to watch a grand experiment unfold with a patchwork of varied responses based on class, economics and politics. Opinions about where this will all lead are as varied as the number of opinion-makers out there, and individual responses seem to be mostly based on the sources of information that people are choosing to rely on.
There’s no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted nearly every facet of foodservice. Trends like delivery and ghost kitchens, which were already on the rise, accelerated in response to dining room closures across the country.
This is an era of market consolidation, where small companies can increase their size and value with the goal of being acquired by a larger entity — and large companies can increase sales by branching out into more categories.
Zaxby’s family meal bundles continue to make a healthy contribution since the Athens, Ga.-based operator launched them in April in reaction to changes in consumption as a result of the pandemic.
Well, it is good to know that the appeal of cat videos and quarantine parodies has its limits as many industry professionals refocus at least some of their attention to the post-pandemic foodservice landscape.
