In its largest international development agreement to date, Dunkin’ Donuts has inked a deal to open 500 doughnut shops in India over the next 15 years. The Canton, Mass., chain signed the agreement with Jubilant FoodWorks. Jubilant also holds master franchisee rights for Domino’s Pizza in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.  Dunkin’s entry into…

Commercial kitchen ventilation is one of your biggest expenses in both equipment and energy. New solutions can help you save money in the long run and improve your kitchen’s environment.

Ducks fans visiting the new Matthew Knight Arena at the University of Oregon can nosh on everything from popcorn to lobster thanks to a foodservice operation that combines flexibility, creativity and volume.

Another strong quarter was posted by the publicly traded foodservice equipment and supplies companies at the end of last year. Blended sales for five equipment-oriented and two supplies-oriented companies rose at a nearly double-digit rate, 9.7%, for the fourth quarter 2010 compared with the same quarter in ’09. The strong gain compares with a 4.2%…

The European foodservice market is also beginning to recover, including capital spending for equipment and supplies, according to manufacturers and others we spoke with at Internorga last week. The big foodservice trade show held annually in Hamburg, Germany, was staged March 18-23 this year. The aisles indeed were crowded. The Hamburg Messe (convention center and…

With strong recent price run-ups in steel and other materials commonly used in foodservice equipment and supplies, it appears E&S manufacturers are becoming somewhat more aggressive about trying to raise their own prices. (For an overview of the recent commodity-price trends, see our story from the last

Food prices at the wholesale level leaped 4% in February, the largest monthly increase in 36 years, according to the National Restaurant Association. It was the eight consecutive month of rising wholesales food prices. So-called “finished foods,” a narrower measure, were 3.9% higher, per the latest Producer Price Index data released by the Bureau of…

We don’t often report data on eating- and drinking-place sales, which come monthly from the U.S. Census Bureau, in part because they can be a bit unreliable according to people more knowledgeable than we are about operator trends. But we couldn’t let this issue end without noting that such sales exceeded $40 billion for the…

Legislation that would inhibit foodservice equipment dealers and others from practicing, or in some cases bidding on, interior design work continues to land in state legislatures. Much of the momentum is due to a 30-year legislative lobbying effort by the American Society of Interior Designers to require all interior designers be licensed for the “public’s…