The Global Market For Foodservice Equipment And Supplies

The Worldwide Buyers Guide—FER‘s annual directory of foodservice equipment and supplies manufacturers and suppliers—is unique in the world of foodservice media. We created it in 1999 to help big chain restaurant and hotel buyers who work globally source products from all of the markets in which they were operating or planned to operate. Christine Palmer, our directory editor, and all of us at FER work very hard to identify and keep up to date the contact information of more than 5,000 suppliers worldwide.

Sixteen years later, the information this guide puts in your hands is even more critical to helping the world’s leading foodservice and lodging operators equip their kitchens. A couple of recent examples illustrate this. 

We recently met with the executive v.p. of a leading chain-oriented dealer in the U.S. The company she helps lead is a primary source of supplies for nearly 200 U.S. restaurant and hotel chains. They depend on her company for smallwares, tabletop and servingware products for their everyday operations, but also for new menu-item rollouts, opening packages for new units and hotels and a host of other services. Many of the manufacturers of these products now are based in Asia, especially in China.

The dockworkers strike that affected West Coast U.S. ports of entry last winter, the gyrations of the Chinese equity markets this summer and the lead times required to move products halfway around the world has many of her customers asking where else in the world they might be able to source products. “We and our major supplier partners are all looking everywhere,” she told us. “India, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Latin America.” And, she noted, several leading U.S. manufacturers are increasing production capability in the U.S., primarily to help big chains with short-lead-time menu rollouts. It’s a global market. 

In mid-October, we head to Milan, Italy, for the biennial Host trade show. The number of E&S suppliers exhibiting at Host always astounds us. There will be hundreds in the coffee-machine halls alone! Many of the big European and U.S. E&S conglomerates are holding meetings with their distributors, dealers and other channel partners from around the world. The big chain buyers and specifiers, the world’s leading design consultants, trade associations from around the world and many others will be on hand. It will be a global E&S party!

And Host is but one of a number of leading international trade shows where E&S suppliers from all across the globe congregate. In November, it will be HX: The Hotel Experience in New York (formerly the Int’l. Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show). In February, it will be Gulfood in Dubai. The party moves to Hamburg, Germany, at Internorga in March. Next spring, it will be Hotelex in Shanghai and Food & Hotel Asia in Singapore. In May, it will be the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. And in February 2017, it will be The NAFEM Show in Orlando, Fla. There are many, many others. Check out our calendar of worldwide events in this guide for more. 

And in the meantime, you can access these global E&S suppliers any time in this Worldwide Buyers Guide and through the online version at fermag.com. That’s the point.

Have a wildly successful, healthy and happy 2016.