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20 FEDA News & Views Foster Frable Trends & Top Picks at the 2016 NRA Show By Foster Frable Jr., Clevenger Frable LaVallee fosterf@cfl design.com Show Overview In a Google-oriented world, it's a sur- prise to some people that trade shows like the NRA still exist and remain popu- lar today. But the numbers tell a different story. Over 65,000 qualifi ed registrants made their way to Chicago for the big- gest NRA Show ever with more than 2,200 exhibitors and almost 700,000 square feet of sold-out exhibition space in three buildings. Organized areas for equipment, tech- nology, food, smallwares, and supply items made the show easy to navigate. Although the set up was not like the big European shows with similar types of equipment grouped together, an effort was made to separate food/supply items from equipment. The number of displays showing bio- degradable or recyclable/disposable dishware appeared to exceed market demand. Over 40 exhibitors were there and most were empty of customers as I passed by. Although there were some non-U.S. manufacturers and suppliers offering equipment and components that are either copies of U.S. goods or perhaps just fi lling booth space (probably orga- nized by some overseas government trade group), there were some new international groups (Spain, Italy, Brazil, and Germany are examples) showing innovative products that seemed to gen- erate interest. New Equipment and Technology Charcoal and wood-fi red cooking con- tinues to be a hot trend, particularly equipment that supports Argentinian steak house concepts. One leader in charcoal ovens, Josper, had its own sepa- rate booth at NRA now that Wood Stone has severed its seven-year relationship with Josper. Wood Stone spent a lot of time and effort to introduce this prod- uct and help secure local approvals. The oven was just getting traction in sev- eral markets as high-profi le installations were being completed. This serves as yet another example of what happens when an American compa- ny introduces new European equipment and technology to the U.S. market, only to have the original manufacturer to want control over sales after the hard work of introducing and nur- turing the product has been completed. Wood Stone, how- ever, has introduced a gas version of their popular plancha grill that was developed for all new Chipotle locations. The grill evenly distributes very high heat over the entire grill surface, which had not previously been available in the market. The new plancha has four thermostati- cally controlled zones, making it possible to also support a range of cooking tem- peratures simultaneously on one surface. Jade/Beech showed two updated prod- ucts intended to counter their competi- tion. One was a new wood grill modeled after the cult favorite, the Grillworks grill, but with a more commercial approach and construction. Beech's strategy was to design a unit that would conform to all requirements of UL2163, the only clas- sifi cation for wood-cooking equipment. This equipment also provides a built-in ash container that holds hot ashes for 48 hours. They also showed the redesigned Jade Titan range with its new knobs and open cheese melter with cooling rack, hinged kick plate, etc. While not true wood cooking, Vulcan and Imperial featured new char-broilers with larger capacity wood smoke boxes that can handle a 4x4 log, under the burner box, that adds smoke fl avor to meat and seafood). These products were introduced as the result of a request from Applebee's to support their nation- wide promotion of a premium steak offering. Garland and Rieber (Germany) part- nered to introduce a ventless hood sys- tem for display cooking stations that can accommodate a variety of electric cook- ing equipment. It's similar to systems marketed in the past by Electrolux, but