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PUBLISHER'S VIEWPOINT
August 2007
The Power And Reach Of Foodservice
I've been thinking lately about just how pervasive foodservice is in our lives. Now, yes, I realize foodservice is my life and has been for more than 30 years. But it touches so many of us in so many ways, we simply accept it, often without thinking about it. A number of experiences during the past few months have reaffirmed this sense of "foodservice everywhere."
I was flabbergasted in April, as I walked down the street of Suzhou, China's main shopping district, to see Colonel Sanders' image fluttering from every light pole. There are three, count 'em, three Kentucky Fried Chicken stores in downtown Suzhou. The chain was also sponsoring many of the trams that carry shoppers up and down the shopping strip. Others were sponsored by McDonald's. Of course, as our pictorial overview of our visit to China in this issue shows, there were plenty of local Chinese restaurants and chains competing for those shoppers' attention.
I was touched when Jim Shoemake, v.p. at Copeland Investments, helped us close our Multiunit Foodservice Equipment Symposium for Fast-Growing Chains in May with a look at the devastation wreaked upon his company's properties, and his community, by Hurricane Katrina. As Jim joked, sometimes you build units and sometimes you rebuild them. But it reminded all of us that feeding people is a sacred and honorable thing to do, even, and maybe especially, in the worst of situations.
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"Feeding people is a sacred and honorable thing to do."
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I was inspired, too, when I attended the 40th anniversary annual meeting of the American Society of Healthcare Food Service Administrators in Sarasota, Fla. in early June. Healthcare foodservice is one of those segments we often don't think about until we experience it. But the dedication of the professionals whose job it is to bring food and comfort to the ill and their families is a remarkable thing. These are folks with a true mission and a love of what they do.
I was pleased when consultant Sherman Robinson called us to let us know he had designed the food facilities at the Gary (Ind.) Public Schools Career Center we featured on our April cover and in our feature on serving lines. He told an amusing story about how the kitchen had actually been build years before and that the district asked him to equip it with items that had been kept in storage for years. "Figuring out the mechanicals was quite a challenge," Sherman said. It reminded me of all the millions of children fed every day by thousands of foodservice professionals from kitchens that may be half a century old. And they do it with love and purpose.
We're very lucky to be part of foodservice. I hope we all remember, today and every day, that what we do is a wonderful and useful thing.
Cheers,
Robin Ashton
Publisher
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