Members of the trade discussed trends, giving back, food
transparency, and supply chain shifts during January's Specialty
Food LIVE! educational sessions and 2021 Leadership Awards.
"People who are saying restaurants are
dead and everyone is going to cook at
home are giving consumers way too much
credit. We love to travel and love to eat
and can't unlearn those behaviors."
—Jonathan Deutsch, professor of culinary
arts and science at Drexel University and
director of the Drexel Food Core Lab, on the
balance of cooking at home post-COVID
"A lot of people are looking for more
transparency in their food. We try to
make it easy for people to know what
type of systems they are supporting."
—Alita Kelly, founder of South East Market, which
emphasizes sourcing local farms and businesses that
are led by women and minorities, as well as those that
are actively supporting environmental sustainability
"Quantifying the impact [a company] is
having may be something that continues
to emerge as a differentiating point."
—Melanie Bartelme, global food analyst for
Mintel, on the trend of companies showing
how the money from their ethical business
practices are supporting communities
"An act of kindness from strangers may
not solve every problem we have, but it
gives us hope and that's a lot, and the
impact of the kindness will affect future
generations. I'm feeling blessed that
Angkor Cambodian is able to give back."
—Channy Laux, CEO of Angkor Cambodian Food,
who survived the Cambodian genocide and labor
camps before coming to the U.S., on winning an
SFA 2021 Leadership Award for Citizenship
"How are you able to react faster to
trends that change? You have to have
more options. I think you'll see a
lot of bigger retailers broaden their
supplier base to have more options."
—Greg Sarley, SVP of merchandising revenue at
Harry & David, on identifying the right supply chain
partners, and having backups for issues that arise
"Finding out what 'real' meant was the
biggest project. We made it our mission to
define what that actually meant, and we
recognized how important it is to know
where your food really comes from."
—Dan Wise, founder and CEO of ready-to-eat
meal delivery service RealEats America Inc.,
on working to improve the food system
You can download videos of
Specialty Food LIVE! sessions as well
as find other educational resources
at learning.specialtyfood.com.
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industry voices
