FROM THE FIELD
March 2004
Speaking of What's New

You’d think the “information age” would’ve made all our lives easier. Press a button, get an answer. Wasn’t that the point? But no. Computers and databanks gave us the wherewithal to spew great galactic loads of data at the speed of light, but narrowing it down to what you actually need can still be a hunt-and-peck process.

Which is where this issue comes in.

What’s new? Tons, of course. Even during tough economic times when R&D gets pruned, new products continue trundling to market.

Most new products, however, are not in this issue. Instead, we put our heads together here in the office and said, “Okay, what cool new things have we seen—actually witnessed—at trade shows since, say, May of 2002?”

Amid all the editorial bombast and head scratching, several really clear trends did surface. Certain categories obviously were hotter hotbeds than others. Ventilation, for example, particularly up-the-hood products, has been a doozie of a category thanks to indoor air quality issues, some freshly applied technology, energy conservation and so on. Likewise, the rush to organic and inorganic antimicrobials has been a pronounced stampede.

So here you have it -- eight categories that caught our eye over the past 22 months.

Steam, too, has been a category to watch. The need to conserve water, energy and labor has driven virtually everybody to boilerless steam designs.

And so on down the line. The Energy Star program now has ramped up for steamers, fryers and holding cabinets, creating a trend-within-a-trend in those three development categories. Fryers have their own thing going on anyway with new and/or revised filtration systems.

Icemakers, meanwhile, have developed out into several new directions over just the past 22 months or so. Some have made huge jumps to patented systems that allow you to get the heat and noise of compressors and condensers away from customers and out onto a remote pad. Other sub-trends include a pronounced emphasis on designs with fewer moving parts, and several different antimicrobial approaches.

So we started reviewing our notes, photos and spec sheets back to and including the 2002 National Restaurant Association Show. We made our best estimations of what were significantly new items. We set aside some models that had lesser changes. Then we settled on eight product categories that really seem to be shifting in significant ways. Then, to cover our bets, if we noticed a big player conspicuous by its absence, we called to make sure we had not missed anything significant.

So there you have it—eight categories that caught our eye over the past 22 months. We hope we’ve whittled it down in a way that’s useful, without whittling away anything by accident. Stay tuned, though. New products are popping up every week.

Brian Ward
Chief Editor