IHMRS Honors Editors’ Choice Products

Five exhibitors received Editors’ Choice Awards during opening ceremonies of the 99th annual International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show, Nov. 9-11 at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

Editors from leading hospitality trade publications reviewed more than 120 submissions and selected five winners based on innovative product design, application to a particular industry need, creative use of material or construction and development or use of a new technology.

FER Editor-in-Chief Beth Lorenzini joined Kris Burnett, Hospitality Upgrade; Glenn Hasek, Green Lodging News; Michelle Renn, Hotel-Online; and Christine Trauthwein, Hotel Business, on the judging panel. The judges cited the best new products within the categories of kitchen design, green, operations, tabletop and technology, and also selected the Kenneth F. Hine “Best of Show” Award. That honor went to EcoWalls for its Chef’s EcoWall Garden.

The 2014 Editors’ Choice Award winners are:

• Green: Chef’s EcoWall Garden—EcoWalls, Bordentown, N.J. Form and function blend in a specifically designed system that controls water, nutrients and lighting to create a sustainable, year-round growing environment for a wide variety of fragrant herbs, leafy greens and other edible plants.

• Kitchen Design: BKON—Franke, Aarburg, Switzerland. The BKON Craft Brewer’s proprietary brewing process, RAIN (Reverse Atmospheric Infusion), uses reduced air pressure as a brewing or infusion variable to produce deep, layered flavor profiles.

• Operations: FlexCart Hotel Engineering Cart—FlexCart, New Albany, Ohio. The compact, lightweight and maneuverable cart substantially increases productivity, inventory control and the overall professionalism of property operation. It includes a removable tool bag with 84 tools in 42 labeled pockets.

• Tabletop: Collapsible Box With Attached Lid—VerTerra Dinnerware, New York. These boxes, made from reclaimed balsa wood with a rice paper finish, feature an innovative reflexive lid and pop-up design, allowing product to ship, store and lay completely flat, saving space while presenting food beautifully.

• Technology: Partender—Partender, San Francisco. The iOS bar inventory and ordering product for iPhone and iPad reduces the time it takes to do full bar inventory and ordering from six hours or more to just 15 minutes. Users can take inventory using any iOS device and view accounting and order reporting online or using Excel.

Images of the winning products are also available online at ihmrs.com