FEDA News & Views

12 FEDA News & Views gold and stainless," Packer says. More colors are planned for early 2019. Keeping ahead of those kinds of innovations requires a lot of energy and understanding of the foodservice equipment industry. American Metalcraft recently hired a new marketing group to survey the market and it has built an internal team fi lled with young talent. But Packer says the designs that make the biggest impression still come from working with operators directly. "Most of our best ideas come from being out there and seeing things in restaurants," he adds. Funky Designs For much of its history, the Chicago-area company was a pro- ducer of pizza pans and plate cov- ers, but by the late '90s, it found itself stagnating. "In 2000, or right around there, we decided that if we were just going to be a pizza and plate cover company for the rest of our lives, we weren't going to be around much longer and we needed to change," Packer says. At the time, many suppliers car- ried essentially the same, or at least similar, tabletop products. There wasn't much variation in the silver- ware or serving dishes between one manufacturer or another. With most restaurants sharing a similar look, operators realized they could differentiate themselves by creating a fresh look for their dining tables. They needed new styles and materi- als that traditional suppliers didn't offer, so many turned to department and furnishing stores to fi nd those items. American Metalcraft saw the shift and instead of doubling down on what it had done before, it commit- ted itself to introducing 150 new products each year, such as its new Crave collection of bowls, plates, and platters made from a highly durable melamine. "We want to fi nd funky, unique, different products to make it more exciting at the operator level," Packer says. The company has a team dedicated to fi nding fun and exciting designs. "Sometimes it can be as simple as turning a lamp- shade upside down and turning it into a basket," Packer notes. These days, much of that new product inspiration comes from overseas. "There are fun little things we've been able to bring back over, like Balti dishes [from India]," he contin- ues. Diversifying its product lineup had another benefi t beyond attracting new customers—greater control over pricing. When competing dis- tributors are all selling similar prod- ucts, there's not a lot of wiggle room to raise profi t margins. "There's a limited amount of opportunity to make money when everyone knows what it should cost," Packer explains. But because American Metalcraft strives for designs that no one has seen from a major manu- facturer, such as soup-can-inspired condiment holders, it can better set its own pricing. Today, the trend toward eating in is forcing American Metalcraft to become even more creative with its future products. "In our business, if we're not capturing them at the res- taurants, we're not engaging them," Packer says. "We have become even more motivated to introduce new and unique items so we can help our operators drive customers back to the table. This is a chal- lenge that could become an oppor- tunity." ■ RECOGNIZED AS THE FIRST COMPANY TO PRODUCE DEEP-DISH CHICAGO-STYLE PIZZA PANS, AMERICAN METALCRAFT TOOK A LEAP IN 2000 AND VENTURED INTO THE TABLETOP MARKET. TODAY, ITS FOCUS IS FINDING UNIQUE MATERIALS TO BRING EXCITEMENT TO OPERATORS' TABLES. How are you making your products more effi cient and lessening their environmental impact? "We have been working to ac- complish this in two ways," Vice President of Sales and Marketing Lee Ann Kelly says. "In our manu- facturing operation, we continue to look for ways to improve effi - ciency and save energy/resourc- es. The facility that we moved into in 2014 has offered many ways to save on energy and to improve our recycling and con- servation goals. Second, in our importing initiatives, we continue to look for new materials that are environmentally-friendly to take into account the changing mo- tivations of our customer base. The end user is the heart of any new product. If they are asking for it, we are trying to deliver."

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