Erica Motes has been named director of sales at Beverage-Air. Motes has been with the Winston-Salem, N.C., company since 2009, most recently as western regional sales manager. She previously served as an outside sales rep for Lund-Iorio. In her new post, she will be responsible for managing and growing sales through Beverage-Air’s manufacturer representatives and…

Chris Butchko has been promoted by Winston Industries to the office of marketing manager. Butchko joined the Louisville, Ky., company seven years ago as marketing communications specialist before transitioning to her most recent post as e-marketing manager role. In her new position, she’ll take over the marketing department reins as Winston moves from a traditional…

Forty of FEDA’s dealer members will be able to reserve seats for next month’s Inventory Management Seminar for Distributors in Chicago. The Nov. 6-7 seminar, limited to the first 40 participants who sign up, provides dealers an opportunity to focus on net profit by zooming in and learning more about inventory management—the largest cash asset…

In case you’ve missed it the past couple of weeks, we’ve announced the winners of our 2015 Management Excellence, Industry Service and Young Lion Awards. One of the most fun things I get to do every couple years is call and let the winners know they’ve won. These awards will be presented during FER’s Industry…

Monday, Oct. 20, is the final day for comments to be received on the proposed phaseout, and the accelerated schedule for that phaseout, of refrigerants commonly used in the foodservice industry. Foodservice stakeholders, especially operators, need to weigh in on one of the greatest regulatory changes ever to threaten the industry–a modification that would affect…

The Vollrath Company is celebrating the 140th anniversary of its founding. In 1874, Jacob J. Vollrath established the Sheboygan Cast Steel Co. in Sheboygan, Wis., to produce items including railroad frogs (a common crossing rail), cooking ranges and agricultural implements. Two years later, his eldest son, Andrew, returned from Germany where he’d studied the art…

Friday marks the deadline to apply for the 2015 Kitchen Innovations Awards. Now in their 11th year, the National Restaurant Association’s KI Awards honor meaningful advancements in foodservice equipment and technology and give suppliers of these cutting-edge products the opportunity to gain industrywide visibility. Recipients will be announced in March and exhibited and demonstrated two…

Apparently, a lot of dealers are misjudging their company’s competitive edge and not focusing on how their edge likely matches that of their competitors. In November, FEDA will present a webinar to help its members answer the key question: “What Is Your Company’s Competitive Edge?” The program, aimed at sales managers and senior executive management,…

Things were looking a little dicey early in the year as brutal winter weather battered many foodservice operators in North America. Now that we finally have all of the numbers in on the second quarter, we can safely say most suppliers of equipment and supplies weathered the storms. But the reports from MAFSI and from…

Robust chain and international growth helped juice combined revenues of eight large publicly reporting foodservice equipment and supplies companies 6.6% in the second quarter of 2014, compared with the same quarter in 2013. The increase follows a strong first-quarter gain of 7.4%. The eight companies’ combined revenues exceed $4 billion annually. The public company numbers…