Blog posts tagged with 'nes news'

We frequently get asked if people can pick up their orders to save on shipping. The answer is yes, you absolutely can come to our Mississauga Showroom/Warehouse or Delta, BC Warehouse and pick-up your order! Here are a few things to keep in mind to ensure that everything goes smoothly on your visit to the National Event Supply Showroom and warehouses.

1) If you want to pick up your order in Vancouver, you need to give us 24 hours notice.

Our warehouse in Delta (a suburb of Vancouver, BC) is a third party facility owned by Locher Evers International. National Event Supply doesn't have any staff at the facility and Locher Evers needs 24 hours to pull the products so that you can pick it up. If you show up at the warehouse without placing your order with us first, you will not be able to pick up the items that you want. That being said, we try our best to make our customers happy so if there is ever a rush situation of less than 24 hours, still give us a call. We will try our very best to ensure your able to meet your deadlines.

2) You can come and look at our products at our Mississauga Showroom before you place your order...

But it can take as long as 45 minutes to an hour for our warehouse staff to pull your order depending on how busy we are. If you know what you want, it's better to give us a call and let us know ahead of time so the warehouse staff can pull your order and so that we can get a start on preparing your paperwork. If you get to the warehouse and decide to change your mind after seeing our products, let us know and we'd be happy to change your order.

3) Make sure that the vehicle you're bringing is large enough for the products you'd like to pick-up.

Occasionally we get customers who order products for pick-up without really realising how large the products really are. Wood Folding tables and plastic folding tables that are five foot (60 inches) round or larger don't lay flat in the backs of van or SUVs or in the box of a pick-up truck. A box of 8 plastic folding chairs is over 3 feet long, is a foot and a half wide and is almost a foot thick. A box of 12 Quadrato Square Dinner Plates is about 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot. If you need to make 2 or 3 trips in your vehicle to get all of the products that you have purchased, you may find it more economical to just have the order shipped to you. If you aren’t sure your vehicle will fit your order, ask one of our customer service representatives! They are trained to calculate the dimensions of your order for shipping purposes and would be happy to send you the overall dimensions so you can make the appropriate accommodations for your order.

So now that you know you can pick up your order and get wholesale prices, what are you waiting for? We hope to see you soon!

Appetizer Menu Trend #1: Sage

Sage is a fantastic herb best known for balancing meat dishes. It was the fastest growing flavour based on Technomic’s research. Consider using this herb in a starter red potato salad with caramelized onions.

Appetizer Menu Trend #2: Peanut

Peanut is frequently used in Asian cuisine in particular. You could consider jumping on the lettuce wrap bandwagon and pairing your delicacy with a peanut sauce as an appetizer. You could also feature a sweet potato fritter with peanut dipping sauce as a limited time offer to capitalize on this trend.

Appetizer Menu Trend #3: Maple

Maple flavour is not a surprising addition to the hottest trends. Maple Syrup in particular has become a hip trend with the entrance of boutique syrup retailers. Maple pairs well with spicy sauces or with salted items to make a juxtaposition of sweet/salty flavour. You could offer a twist on the traditional Caesar salad with maple salted bacon bits to liven up the plate. You might also consider featuring a Maple Corn & Butternut Squash soup starting September 1st.

Appetizer Menu Trend #4: Pistachio

Pistachio is most traditionally used for baklava and pistachio ice cream. They generally are known for their rich and nutty taste that works well alone or combined with other flavours. To take advantage of this menu trend, what about pairing salmon puffs with a pistachio basil butter? Alternatively you could offer pistachio-goat cheese bites as a starter option.

Appetizer Menu Trend #5: Lime

Lime is a citrus flavour most traditionally associated with Mexican foods and pie. If your restaurant theme supports it you could create an appetizer of cilantro lime chicken tacos with a slaw on top. Tacos are a big hit these days. You could go a totally different route and offer a salad with ginger-lime dressing.

Hopefully these 5 appetizer flavour trends will pique your interest and you can use the flavours to your advantage.

Back in September/October of 2013, The NPD Group released a report on the coffee market. Included in that report was a graph showcasing the amount of coffee consumed in Japan, Australia, UK, US, China, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Canada. Out of all countries, Canada ranked second indicating the high amount of coffee Canadians drink.

"73% of Canadians drink coffee, consuming an average of 12.4 cups per week or nearly two cups per day." - The NPD Group’s What’s Brewing in the Coffee Market: A Consumer Perspective

Quick Service Restaurants in Canada have already jumped on this market opportunity, revamping their coffee menu offerings or offering coffee for the first time, offering loyalty card rewards and even partnering with major financial institutions to offer an innovative way to purchase their coffees while earning rewards. But while the Quick Service industry seems to be making a lot of press on its new and innovative coffee programs, it seems as if the Full Service restaurant industry is lagging behind.

Barbara Smyth of The NPD Group wrote an article on the What’s Brewing in the Coffee Market report for the Canadian Restaurant & Foodservice News Magazine and suggested that expanding a full service restaurant’s menu should bode well for business. In fact, Technomic, another foodservice analyst firm wrote a blog post about Coffee Café's stating these particular chains have experienced a 5.6% increase in sales. If you think about it, if Canada ranks second for the amount of coffee consumed, it’s a no brainer to include a coffee program as part of an expanded menu.

What are some options that fullservice restaurant operators can use to include a coffee program and leverage the market opportunity?

I found an article from 2011 (I know a little dated but the article holds true today) from the Coffee Buyer Report on how innovative flavour programs in coffee are an opportunity waiting to happen. The report goes on to mention that "an elevated perception of flavoured coffee as a 'specialty beverage experience' is driving sales increases in other flavours" besides the traditional Vanilla and Hazelnut flavour variations.

A Full Service Restaurant Operator could use this to their advantage – finding and developing a flavored coffee program to create an innovative beverage experience based on this country's most treasured beverage. Operators could also challenge their front-of-house and back-of-house staff with a friendly inter-restaurant competition to devise new coffee beverages to offer on the menu – for either credit on the menu (for the fame hungry) or a monetary fee such as a gift card or a day off. Alternatively, perhaps you offer a coffee tasting similar to a beer flight as a dessert or beverage option as a romanticized experience rather than just a beverage.

Whatever you choose to do, it makes sense to try to capitalize on the sheer size of coffee drinkers in this country. It could be good for your business too.

Last week I opened the August issue of Canadian Restaurant & Foodservice News and was quite frankly appalled by one of the articles I saw. The article was titled “Women of Influence” with the subtitle “Women leaders are good for business”…Women. Leaders. Are. Good. For. Business.

Is this not 2014? Women leaders are good for business just as much as men leaders are good for business. Both genders have been scientifically proven to have different ways of looking at issues and opportunities that can heavily benefit an organization that embraces a gender-balanced leadership team. This is actually not an attack on the magazine or the article author. I am a huge fan of this magazine and frankly I applaud them for writing a piece about the lack of women in the foodservice industry who have career aspirations to the senior leadership. I’m just so astounded and taken aback by the fact that in this day and age, when Amazon is testing drone delivery of packages that women are still dealing with biases (whether unconscious or otherwise) and a lack of leadership positions across the country.

Perhaps it was because I was raised in a household that focused more on who I was, what I thought and how I acted than my gender. I was raised to believe I could do anything that my younger brother could do. Did I want to do everything my younger brother could do? Hell no, but having the option there without it being taken away from me gave me the freedom to choose whatever I wanted to pursue in life. I’m just so disappointed that this article needs to exist to coach women to take responsibility for their own careers. Where is your passion, ladies of the foodservice industry? This is an industry that takes no prisoners. You invest blood, sweat and tears into this industry. You owe it to yourselves to step up to the plate and make an investment in yourself.

The article in Canadian Restaurant & Foodservice News does a fantastic job at profiling women of influence in the corporate foodservice world. But that’s not the only way for women to succeed. Just look at what happens when women make the investment in themselves. Lynn Crawford, owner of Ruby Watchco, trained at George Brown College in Toronto, worked her way up the ranks to become the executive chef at the Four Seasons in Toronto and New York before competing on the Food network’s Iron Chef America and subsequently debuting her own Food Network Canada show. Rose Reisman is an intelligent and innovative entrepreneur who began her career by self-publishing a cookbook in 1988. Since then she has extended her brand into a multitude of businesses including a catering company, a daily food delivery service as well as a personal website devoted to preventing diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and other diseases controlled by lifestyle and nutrition. Note that their paths were not through the corporate foodservice world but through employing passion, innovation and entrepreneurship to succeed as women of influence. These are just a small number of women who have pursued a path to career success. Looking to them as an example should hopefully show women of the foodservice industry that are struggling with unconscious or conscious gender biases that there’s more than one avenue to career fulfillment and success.

Blogging is an awesome way to learn new information about your industry. It generally provides short, relevant and (sometimes) entertaining articles that can be easily consumed when you have the time. We’ve learned so much from other blogs in terms of the statistics and other research about the foodservice industry simply by following blogs of interest.

Because we’ve learned so much, we wanted to pass on the favour by compiling some of the best blogs to follow on the restaurant industry.

So without further ado here's our list of our favourite food and foodservice bloggers! (Note these aren’t in any particular order)

Technomic’s Blog:

CHD Experts – A Blog Powered by Foodservice Data:

Foodservice.com's Blog:

Order Up, The Official Blog of Restaurants Canada:

Eater National: The National Restaurant, Bar, Nightlife and Food Blog:

Foodbeast.com Food News: