Welcome to the May issue of FE&S. I am especially pleased to present this issue for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is the big reveal for our FE&S redesign project.
Our team, lead by Art/Production Director Anne LoCascio, has been working diligently toward this new look for the magazine. We think it provides a fresher, more reader friendly appearance while still delivering all the depth and editorial coverage that you have come to expect from FE&S. We have more improvements planned that will be implemented in nearly every month remaining in 2011, both here in print and also at www.fesmag.com.
May is the month that we look forward to hosting the Dealer of the Year and Industry Awards Gala during NRA weekend. This year the DOY event falls on Saturday, May 21 and takes place at the beautiful Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Chicago. For those of you planning to attend, you already know this event represents an opportunity for the industry to come together in a night of celebration recognizing the achievements of the top performers from every facet of the foodservice equipment and supplies distribution channel. For those of you unable to attend, we will do our best to make you feel as though you were there with detailed coverage both online at www.fesmag.com and here in print.
In March of this year, it was our great pleasure to be the exclusive media partner for the second annual StorePoint Restaurant conference, March 20–23 in Bonita Springs, Fla. The folks at StorePoint have been conducting similar conferences across many industries for a number of years and are gaining some traction among chain restaurants with this efficiently run and carefully designed event. It is a great conference, one that allows for both one on one and small group interactions among manufacturers, dealers, consultants and chain operators. In July we will feature a special report on innovative chains.
The positive industry vibe that punctuated The NAFEM Show earlier this year was carried forward at the FEDA Convention, which took place March 30 – April 2 in Phoenix. This year's event addressed a number of difficult topics, such as vexing concerns over deviated pricing, unfair foreign competition, and shifting buying group affiliations, to name a few. The issues are thorny and no one thinks that they are going away easily, but, thankfully there is a strong industry association to provide a forum to discuss these substantial issues in a professional forward-thinking venue.
Through our travels over the past several weeks, it has been gratifying to learn, especially from many of our newest readers, how much they appreciate the option of receiving FE&S both in print and digitally. The digital edition makes it easy to forward a .pdf of an interesting article to a colleague, partner or client. In addition to offering the digital issue as an option to qualified readers, we also make archived editions of the magazine available digitally at www.fesmag.com to facilitate sharing and enable convenient access to this content.
Regardless of how you choose to consume our content, we're just happy that you do.
