It’s not just the seminars, workshops, business meetings and golf scores that will garner attention at this week’s

Non-profit organizations that have a kitchen can learn ways to save money next week. On Thursday, April 5, event will be held at SoCal’s Food Service Equipmentt Center in Downey, Calif. It includes breakfast and lunch. Attendees must register by this Friday, March 30.

The here. NAFEM is a trade association of more than 550 foodservice equipment and supplies manufacturers providing products for food preparation, cooking, storage and table service.

The 500 largest restaurant-chain concepts grew nearly twice as fast in 2011 as in ’10, according to Technomic Inc., the Chicago foodservice research firm. The 500 chains rang up sales of $242 billion last year, up $8 billion from the prior year. “It is certainly encouraging to see overall industry growth rates nearly double in…

Independent restaurants continued to shed units last year—a net decline of 6,863 units—even as the Great Foodservice Recession began to moderate. The tally is part of the latest data from The NPD Group’s biannual ReCount census of restaurants in the United States. Chains, meanwhile, managed a slight increase of 380 net units in the same…

Wholesale food prices fell again in February, the third consecutive month prices have moved lower. This trend, in turn, apparently slowed the pace of menu-price increases in February from those seen in recent months. Average wholesale food prices fell 0.3% in February, compared to January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National…

Prices for nearly all metals used widely in foodservice equipment and supplies have begun to move higher, after a brief decline in prices late last year. Stainless steel prices are moving higher after bottoming out in December and January. The MEPS Int’l. North American All Products Stainless Steel Index rose to 171.9 in February, a…

Yes, the 50 major economic forecasting groups polled monthly by Blue Chip Economic Indicators still predict a painfully slow recovery from The Great Recession. But their long-range consensus forecasts, reported in the March newsletter, for growth of real gross domestic product for the years ’14 through’17 improved slightly from their forecasts last October. GDP growth…

The American Disabilities Act standards from 1991 officially expired March 15 and were supplanted by the updated

The Palmetto State is getting serious about food safety.  South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control is updating the state’s food-safety regulations for the first time in 17 years. The new rules are likely to require some restaurants to upgrade equipment. They will certainly impact public health directly, by requiring cold holding temperatures be…