US Foods has earned our Foodservice Distributor of the Year Award not by going about its business as usual during perhaps the most un-usual time for foodservice in decades, but by transforming itself into a multi-faceted solutions source for its 300,000 clients to access anytime. The company’s longtime tagline is “We Help You Make It”, and that took on a whole new meaning in 2020.
At this time last year, we at Refrigerated & Frozen Foods decided to put our annual Foodservice Distributor of the Year Award on hold. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated unprecedented shutdowns in foodservice—restaurants, hotels, schools, caterers, stadiums, and other volume venues—leaving behind thousands of shuttered businesses. To put it lightly, there was very little to celebrate in foodservice last year.
As we enter the mid-point of 2021 in an increasingly post-pandemic cold chain, the industry destination on many minds is “The New Normal”. Are we there yet? Editor-in-Chief Michael Costa says the short-term answer is no, and the long-term answer might be the same.
Refrigerated & Frozen Foods has hosted a Best New Retail Products Contest since 2013, but 2021 is the first time we’ve split frozen and refrigerated products into separate annual competitions. The first leg this year was for frozen foods, and after a month of voting throughout April, our top five was set based on vote totals from the public.
Traditionally, one overlooked and underutilized labor pool has been women. The industry has been a male-dominated field for decades, but the need for additional help today has put women in a better situation to start a cold chain career.
At this time last year, those working along the cold chain were collectively trying to figure out how to navigate daily—sometimes hourly—changes and disruptions to business in the middle of a pandemic. Today, as the pandemic wanes in the U.S., a new set of challenges exist, but the industry is better prepared and positioned to overcome many of those obstacles.