Robert Rippe & Associates has hired Joie Schoonover as Management Consultant, a role in which she will provide and implement operational solutions to clients throughout the country. Schoonover brings more than 30 years of industry experience to her new role at the Minnetonka, Minn., consultancy, including the past seven years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.…

We’re going to keep this one short and sweet. Jan and I have a Christmas tree to finish trimming, our son Sam came home from Ohio University for winter break yesterday (I write this Sunday, Dec. 13), and I’m just getting going on Christmas shopping. On the business side, we have two meetings with our…

Myers Restaurant Supply is getting bigger on the West Coast. The dealer’s new Alameda, Calif., office is its second in the Bay Area. In the past three years, Santa Rosa-based Myers also opened new offices in Southern California and New Jersey. It had a booming year in 2014, reporting sales of $38.3 million, a nearly…

Dealer members and industry partners heading for FEDA’s 2016 Annual Convention can now access information and registration forms at FEDA’s website. Both online and pdf versions can be found

Unified Brands has hired Amanda McGuffin-Noll as regional sales manager for the northeast territory of the United States. In her new role, she will manage local representatives for Unified’s institutional business while leading sales growth and supporting local dealers. McGuffin-Noll has 20-plus years’ experience in sales, marketing, product management and foodservice management. Unified Brands, headquartered…

This is normally the time of year that our forecasting partner John Muldowney, principal at Clarity Marketing, and I look at our current equipment and supplies market forecasts. We talked last week and see no reason to revise either our 2015 estimate or our 2016 forecast. In fact the third quarter numbers from MAFSI and…

Results from eight publicly reporting equipment and supplies companies were mixed in the third quarter of 2015, according to data compiled by John Muldowney, principal at Clarity Marketing. Overall sales for the eight rose 4.3%, versus the third quarter last year, driven by strong gains from three of the equipment-oriented companies and a moderately positive…

The Manitowoc Co., in the process of separating its foodservice and crane businesses, announced December 7 that it has sold Kysor Panel Systems, a maker of wood frame and high-density rail panel systems for walk-in freezers and coolers to a private investment firm affiliate for about $85 million. The buyer, D Cubed Group, also acquired…

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End of year giving is a wonderful thing, but in a country where an estimated 30 million Americans—including 12 million children—are at risk of hunger, giving and donating is needed year-round. An estimated 14 billion pounds of food are sent to U.S. landfills every year. Nationwide, full-service restaurants account for 20% of food waste, grocery stores…