Editor’s note: The author is editor in chief of The Schechter Report, and a veteran journalist who has covered the foodservice industry, especially equipment news and information, for more than 20 years. The Schechter Report and Nation’s Restaurant News have created a content alliance to better serve foodservice executives with specialized foodservice equipment news and information. The content here does not necessarily reflect the views of Nation’s Restaurant News.
After just one day of activity at the Orlando, Fla., Convention Center, trends already are beginning to emerge that reflect the improving economy and foodservice equipment manufacturers’ drive for technical leadership and resource conservation.
Confidence. Connectivity. Customization. Conservation. Creativity. Collectively, these terms symbolize the mood and developments at the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers 2011 trade show — and a far cry it is from the last NAFEM convocation in ’09.
First, numbers are up for both attendees and exhibitors. The show floor is some 20-percent to 30-percent larger than in 2009, booth sizes are up, and product displays are more extensively supported by plasma-screen videos, website data monitoring and live demonstrations. Seeing the crowds of operators, dealers, consultants and the media flowing through the aisles, more than one exhibiting manufacturer has commented that their belief in the resurgence of the economy was becoming stronger, that maybe all the investments in new models, features and options would, in fact, pay off in higher 20011 sales.
Integrated systems
One of these investments can be seen in the number of new cooking, refrigeration and air-handling systems that are more integrated with facility-climate monitoring and control networks for greater energy efficiency and sustainability. Some hood systems now capture and recycle heat from cooking equipment, while others use ultra-violet light to remove grease from and oxidize vapors in kitchen air supplies.
Software that enables remote monitoring, controlling and recording of walk-in refrigerators’ performance, as well as individual products’ temperatures, increasingly is becoming a feature offered by suppliers of compressors and refrigeration equipment. Oven manufacturers are integrating a variety of cooking technologies to produce hybrid convection ovens with variable steam settings for low volume baking and electric cooking bases topped with induction ranges — two- and four-hob — designed to prepare more items simultaneously with less energy and reduced ambient heat.
As equipment component technology continues to diversify, manufacturers exhibiting at NAFEM also are promoting the custom modularity of their prep, production and holding/display equipment. Ovens and ranges of all out-puts and sizes are widely being offered with available sinks, undercounter refrigeration — drawers or doors — chilled-rail worktops and temperature-controlled integrated display cases. Operators are being encouraged to assemble these pieces “their way” to ensure the best fit of equipment with their menu programs.
Hardly a food cart or merchandizing counter on display comes without a growing choice of façade and work-top surfaces and finishes, from brushed metal to recycled composites and custom wraps printed to display brand logos and concept identities. A new self-serve smoothie maker is being exhibited in a neon-green wrap bearing the legend, “Make your own damn smoothie!” and offers customers hundreds of potential ingredient combinations. Equipment such as this and new 100-choice beverage dispensers are helping operators respond to their customers’ growing interest in personalized and custom-made food choices.
Conserving resources
Operators, specifying consultants and dealers finally can expect NAFEM’s equipment manufacturers to partner fully with them to conserve resources and increase sustainability. One outstanding example of this is a new mobile hot-holding cart that combines electricity and propane to ensure food temperatures and quality, and solar energy to power its controls.
In the ware-washing category, several exhibitors at NAFEM seem locked in a struggle for environmental leadership by presenting competing models designed to reduce water requirements (with new wash arm designs), capture steam before it escapes from wash cavities (to eliminate hoods and reduce air-handling energy needs) and recycle the heat from wash water to ensure sanitizing rinse-cycle temperatures.
Even food-display case manufacturers have brought out energy-saving, glycol-cooled reach-ins and new refrigeration systems capable of contributing to up to 16 LEED certification points.
The food-serving and display equipment on display was notable for another reason — the graceful, subtle design of cabinets created to present single types of foods to their best advantage. Chocolate cases, wine cabinets, heated prepared-food merchandisers and fresh meat and fish counters from several makers of custom and catalogue equipment impressed show-goers with tiered shelving, curved and radiused cabinetry, expansive glass areas and hidden lighting that made their contents stand out like models on a runway.
This is shaping up to be an outstanding and memorable NAFEM Show. Still, operators and specifiers dream of their ideal equipment. Said one restaurant group manager, “We’re here looking for something that doesn’t exist — a double clamshell grill with an auto-lift feature.” A consultant remarked wistfully: “I know what I want when it comes to the serving equipment for a new project. I just have to find someone to build it.”
Contact Mitchell Schechter at mschechter@axis-m.com.
