Blog Post: The State of the Foodservice Industry

Ignition recently spoke at AttriCon 2020, Attribyte’s product data virtual conference; an event featuring industry leaders, distributors, and manufacturers in the foodservice industry. Over three days, panels and discussions were held about the current state of the foodservice industry and what leaders are doing to position themselves for success in the future.

Ignition also recently hosted a webinar with Jim Klass, Foodservice Industry Advisor and Managing Director of MarketIntelligence, LLC, that discussed what the future might hold for foodservice distributors and the industry as a whole in a post-Covid-19 world. Using Jim’s hypothesis, Mike Watson, Sr. Director of Customer Development at Ignition by AFS, demonstrated how a distributor can use purpose-built technology to position themselves for success after the Great Reset. We’ve been actively instructing our partners via our Thought Leadership position to align themselves with certain critical technologies that will bring new value to their business in the COVID era.  Industry leaders at Attricon echoed our assertions that having strong technology in your company is a key component to recovering and growing from the challenges of COVID-19 and it’s aftermath…

During AttriCon 2020, a panel debate discussing the recovery from Covid-19 in the foodservice industry was held between Bob Carpenter from GS1 US and Mark Allen, President of IFDA. We’ve highlighted some important quotes from this panel as we believe these quotes represent precisely the reasons why AFS has invested so heavily in the Ignition platform and continues to do so.

The “new normal” will dictate much stronger digital prerequisites in order to compete and grand-scale efficiency, paper processes can no longer be tolerated if you want to grow and succeed.

“State of the Industry featuring IFDA President Mark Allen and Bob Carpenter” – Attricon June 18, 2020

 “Those companies that made an investment in technology over the last three to five years are going to emerge from this a lot stronger.” Bob Carpenter, GS1 US

“The world is going online.  Whether you’re a distributor or an operator, I think we’ve seen through all of this, if you don’t have an online presence, It’s a huge disadvantage for the company.” Mark Allen, President of IFDA

“People are starting to realize if I’m not online I don’t have a chance to survive and I certainly don’t have a chance to grow…  This is one of the tough lessons from COVID that you have to have a great online presence that is intuitive and friction free in order to survive.” Bob Carpenter

 “If you are not investing in in data and investing in standards and high-quality images and everything necessary to support and sell your products in an online environment that at some point you will be left behind and I really do believe that.” Mark Allen

 “There is more money into customer-facing technology by well-funded distributors today than there ever has been.  That’s an online presence, the where’s my truck visibility into the supply chain, helping customers solve some of their own challenges.  An incredible amount of investment going into that, it’s an exciting area to be in.” Mark Allen

If you’d like to read more about our predictions for the future of the foodservice industry and take away some actionable advice, you can download our white paper “Facing Uncertainty: The Great Foodservice Reset” below.