A stricter interpretation of county restaurant regulations has pressured two cooking schools in Chapel Hill. N.C., to ensure their kitchen equipment meets the same standards as restaurants.According to local media, both A Southern Season and C’est Si Bon have had to change their food preparation routine as well.The general manager at A Southern Season called…

Evanston, Ill., FER’s hometown, is a tad green around the gills from overemphasizing its “green ordinance” over its need to bring in some green for its tax base. Until recently, the city boasted a green building ordinance with a 10,000-sq.ft threshold for mandatory LEED certification. But the demands and strictures of the ordinance appeared to…

Amid allegations of substandard patient care at the island’s only public hospital, Guam’s governor has signed into law a bill aimed at tackling at least one of the hospital’s problems—the lack of accessible foodservice for visitors and staff. The new law, No. 31-02, allows the Guam Memorial Hospital Authority to solicit and contract for the…

As we reported last issue, observers of the foodservice market are worried about the impact rising gasoline prices may have on the recovery of the foodservice market. While oil-price pressures have eased a bit during the past two weeks, gasoline prices continued to rise. The national average price moved almost 14 cents higher—to $3.52—for the…

Oil and its refined products are not the only commodities experiencing upward pressure on prices. Prices for stainless and carbon steels are also increasing, in the case of carbon steels, quite dramatically. The MEPS Int’l. North America All Products Composite Price Index for carbon steels jumped 33.7% from November 2010 to February this year. That’s…

We’ve said again and again that the recession in foodservice has been unprecedented in our lifetimes. It’s within that context that a milestone was achieved in the fourth quarter 2010: Overall foodservice traffic was flat, according to the NPD Group. It was the first quarter in two years in which traffic had not declined. In…

In spite of commodity price increases, turmoil in the Middle East and now an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, macroeconomic forecasters of the U.S. economy remain relatively upbeat about growth prospects. In the March issue of Blue Chip Economic Indicators, the consensus forecasts of U.S. real gross domestic product were down slightly for 2011 at…

The survey form for Foodservice Equipment Reports’ Top 50 Dealers ranking was emailed to you last week. If you missed it, you can download it here: fermag.com/media-library/research.html. It’s very straightforward. But it does have one requirement no other dealer ranking survey has ever had: We are requiring you verify your volume data. A signature from…

Edlund Co. has promoted Joe Fera to v.p.-national accounts. He’ll focus on growing the company’s chain-account business in the U.S. and Canada. Fera had served as director of national accounts since joining the Burlington, Vt., manufacturer in 2006. “Since joining Edlund five years ago, Joe has been an instrumental part of our success, especially during…

Greg Schurch, Cambro Mfg.’s national healthcare manager, has a new title as v.p.-sales planning and development at the Huntington Beach, Calif., company. In his new position, Schurch will oversee Cambro’s field sales team and market segment specialists. Schurch had spearheaded the development of Cambro Healthcare and directed the Hatfield, Mass., division’s rapid growth. He has…