PUBLISHER'S VIEWPOINT
February 2006
Long Live Our 'Fun & Games'

We at Gill Ashton Publishing are coming up on an important milestone. Quick, look back at the cover. Look at the volume number of this issue. (It’s above the “E” in “FOODSERVICE.”). Yup. We’re in double digits, the big 1-0. We’ve entered our 10th year of making the magazine, and a bunch of other things, for you.

We plan to have fun with the anniversary this year, as we try to do with most things. After all, our company motto is “Bless Our Fun & Games.” (Yes, we have a company motto, bequeathed to us from my mentor Jane Wallace.) Brian and Jennifer are planning something special for the October 2006 issue. That month will mark the 10-year anniversary of the “inaugural” issue of Foodservice Equipment Reports.

But this month, I’d like to remind you of a bit of our history, and why we’ve been able to do something pretty rare and difficult: start and sustain a new business-to-business media company. Bear with me; this really comes back to all of you.

The whole idea of FER—dreamt up in a place called the Beacon Tap by Brian, Jen and I on June 16, 1995—was to do two things no one had done before. First, create an equipment and supplies magazine to target large multiunit operators who buy the majority of foodservice E&S and are really the only operators who buy enough E&S to matter or care much. (Our dealer and consultant friends—who we also go to—help everyone choose their brands.)

"The whole idea of FER was to do two things no-one had done before."

Second, and even more significantly, we wanted to compare brands of equipment and supplies, by name. It may seem strange now that we’ve done this for 10 years, but in 1995, no magazine in foodservice would name names in editorial articles outside product sections. It’s very rarely done by any other publication, even today.

Comparing brands by name was, and remains, a very high-risk activity for an enterprise almost completely dependent on advertising revenue (not enough of you would pay enough to make this business work on a subscription basis). We have plenty of stories from the past 10 years that prove the point.

But both of our original ideas also create a very unique value for you, the reader, and, we are happy to say, many of your suppliers, our customers. They recognize the opportunity, unavailable anywhere else, to communicate with their very best customers in an editorial environment whose stated purpose is to allow you to credibly and fairly compare brands.

We’re also happy to say we’ve convinced enough of them over the past decade to pay for ads so we’re still in business and can bring you this magazine—plus our website, www.fermag.com; our e-newsletter, FER Fortnightly; our meetings, such as MUFES, set for this month, and all the other things we do.

We thank them, and we thank you for 10 years of support and fun and games.

Cheers,

Robin Ashton
Publisher