Thought Leadership

    By:  Rick Abraham | Rob Veidenheimer September 23, 2020 Driven by dramatic declines in the foodservice channel due to the COVID-19 crisis, the total food industry is projected to contract approximately $200 billion in 2020 as retail channel strength will...

    By:  Bob Goldin | Barry Friends August 17, 2020 The latest quarterly results from the Big 3 foodservice distributors (Performance Food Group, Sysco and US Foods) provide ample evidence of the hugely adverse impact the Covid-19 pandemic is having on the...

    By:  Barry Friends | Gary Karp July 27, 2020   Covid-19 sparked a massive food purchase channel shift from restaurants to retail, one which may take years to unravel, if ever.  By “if ever,” we mean that while the calories consumers historically...

    By:  Bob Goldin | Barry Friends July 15, 2020   As we are painfully aware, the pandemic has – and continues – to have a hugely adverse impact on foodservice.  We forecast industry sales will be down 30 – 35% this year and believe a recovery to...

    By:  Barry Friends | Bob Goldin June 17, 2020   The foodservice value stream includes a long-established and minimally discussed class of distributors specializing in restaurant chains, known as “Systems” or “Customized” distributors (in the 1980’s...

    By:  Bob Goldin | John Geocaris* June 4, 2020 For the past five years, small and micro-sized food and beverage companies¹ have grown 2.5 times faster than larger companies².  They have effectively capitalized on key consumer trends (such as simple and...

    By:  Barry Friends | Gary Karp May 28, 2020 There are many projections of what the size and structure of the foodservice industry will be as we emerge from the March-April-May restrictions and how long it will take for foodservice to establish new sales...

    By:  Bob Goldin | Barry Friends May 8, 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic caused a dramatic slowdown (and in some segments, a near or total cessation) of virtually all foodservice activity during the last few weeks in March for industry participants of all types...

  May 6, 2020 By:  Rick Abraham | Bill Caskey   Introduction Those of us that have been around a while wish we had a nickel for each time we said “foodservice is a face to face people business and always will be…”.  Relationship based selling is always...

  April 15, 2020 By:  Barry Friends | Bob Goldin   We all believe there’s a not-too-distant future in which we can leave our homes and begin doing the many things we’ve always taken for granted. And while so much about that future remains unknown and only...

    By:  Bob Goldin | Barry Friends and Bob Planck¹ February 13, 2020 The “Big 3” publicly traded foodservice distributors – Sysco, US Foods and Performance Food Group – have again reported impressive results for the most recent quarter.   For the group,...

  By:  Bob Goldin | Rob Veidenheimer January 27, 2020   Food and beverage manufacturer sales were $860 billion in 2019.  Of this total, $245 billion (29%) was private label¹. In retail, private label share is 21%; in foodservice it is 45%. Over the past...