As 2021 comes to a close, Supply Chain challenges are becoming a daily topic in the news. Please join us for a peek behind the curtain with McLane, one of the nations largest Foodservice Distributors. Aaron Marshall is VP of Strategic Planning for McLane Foodservice, and he will share some of the unprecedented challenges that occurred this year, McLane's strategies to adapt, and thoughts for a future vision of food distribution.

For a long time, customer loyalty has focused on two things: signups and discounts. The commonly accepted thinking was to capture email addresses and send promotions in order to increase transactions. In sum, traditional loyalty = transactional loyalty. But we now know that when it comes to creating enduring customer relationships, transactions are just the tip of the iceberg. A customer must choose you over the competition over and over – and for reasons beyond price. The experience has to be about more than just the transactional cycle of spending money to earn rewards in order to spend more money. From identifying and understanding your customer base to removing friction and adding value, we’ll explore how to create the kind of engagements that result in true loyalty to help you retain customers, drive more revenue from those relationships and succeed in beating out the competition.

Omni-channel, POS as the center of your universe, a single source of truth. etc. etc. You’ve heard it all before, right? Let’s discuss why they all failed, how you’ve been burned, and why a Unified Commerce Platform could be your solution. We’ll cover what a Unified Commerce Platform is and why it’s as much a strategy as it is a tangible thing. More importantly, we’ll cover why you can’t effectively engage your guests or manage your business without it.

A compelling experience is crucial to reviving dine-in traffic and sales – but what is important and appealing to consumers now? Join Technomic to learn how consumer lifestyles, behaviors and priorities are evolving post-pandemic and the implications for their expectations of the dine-in experience. Discover how design, décor, tech and other features impact consumer visits, and how leading restaurants and other foodservice operators are elevating the in-location experience to sharpen their competitive edge in this age of reinvention.   

A transformative panel discussion on the need for operational innovation and the realities learned while undertaking kitchen automation in the restaurant industry. Our panel includes: Thomas Grote, Chief Catalyst Officer at the Edge Innovation Hub; Jeff Cook, former Chief Engineer for McDonald’s Corp. and current Chief Operating Officer for EMJAC Industries; Peter Cryan, VP of Equipment Innovation & Automation at Inspire Brands; and moderator Dan Hartlein, President of Antunes.

How many customers do you know and how many of them can your team motivate to spend more and visit more frequently? With digital orders growing at a faster pace than in-store orders, understanding who your guests are and investing in those relationships is paramount to growth. Charles will share three stories of restaurant brands that have focused on driving brand value by delivering exceptional guest experience through both loyalty and digital ordering journeys to maximize the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Let’s confront the two largest pain points of the restaurant industry head on—rising costs and declining labor. A food forward panel of industry experts will discuss successful strategies within these two key areas. As a group we will share what is currently working and provide insights on the needs for future success.

As your guests return, the rules of engagement have changed. More than ever, customers are looking online and on mobile for incentives that will connect them with restaurant brands. Now is the time to create and nurture meaningful relationships between your restaurant and your guests — how, when and where it matters. In this session, our panel of experts will define the relationship between long-term loyalty and near-term incentives while sharing actionable new consumer research on what it takes to engage your guests right now. This session promises to introduce you to:

• New opportunities to develop guest relationships
• Tactics to spark immediate guest action
• The direct link between immediate incentives, guest loyalty and brand profitability

Technomic will profile the current environment facing the industry with a look toward future expectations, using the most trusted global foodservice market data and insights.   Overarching US economic and business issues will be discussed to provide context on restaurant industry impact.  Latest restaurant industry data and over-arching trends that span the restaurant space and that are fueling change as the industry recovers from the pandemic will be revealed. Coverage will include post-pandemic consumer and menu-based evolutionary factors required to drive success.  Technomic will also present its 2022 and longer term forecasts for the restaurant industry, and provide perspectives for underlying growth.

Virtual kitchens have become remarkably popular during the pandemic and have the potential to change how the industry develops and creates new concepts and generates returns on investment. This session discusses the economics and operations of virtual kitchens and how they can help operators generate sales and entrepreneurs make money fast. 

Join experts from Portillo’s and SMG as we reveal the latest industry research and practical learnings brands can use to shape their delivery strategies for both in-house and third-party options. In this session, you’ll discover which delivery models are winning with customers, where brands can focus to minimize problems, and what tactics are working in today’s challenging market.

It’s no secret that today’s consumer wants a fast, personalized, and consistent experience across all channels. And when brands get it right, they are rewarded with greater loyalty and lifetime value from their guests. But to achieve a truly unified experience, brands need to think bigger than multichannel (or even omnichannel) solutions. Join this panel of restaurant innovators to gain best practices and first-hand advice about leveraging an extensible unified commerce strategy to stand out in 2022 and beyond.

During this session, learn to unlock the sales and guest visit generating power of the multiple new data sources now available to restaurant marketers and operators. By focusing on the customer first, ADM Marketing has consistently driven incremental sales for its clients over its 20 year history.

The foodservice supply chain offers incredible potential to ‘make or break’ a restaurant operation’s success. Winning concepts utilize their supply chains to create lean end-to-end procurement networks that are scalable, safe, and reliable. Truly effective supply chain management reaches well beyond procurement to create robust data and analytics machines that can help gauge the strength of a concept and uncover impactful cost savings opportunities.
Hear from skilled Supply Chain Executives from across the foodservice industry to learn 5 Steps to Supply Chain Success.

The restaurant industry continues to face a significant labor crisis, and a new labor paradigm is emerging. Old models of labor management won’t work, and short-term solutions won’t last. What is the new labor model, and what real-world strategies can you use to attract, retain, and engage your workforce? Join the discussion to hear how successful restaurant operators are finding ways to overcome this challenge, gain a competitive advantage, and drive outsized growth and profitability for their organizations.

Today’s restaurant technology landscape includes hundreds of innovative technology products and services. With so many products aimed at bringing restaurants into the digital future, how do leaders know where to start, what to prioritize, and how to bring their stakeholders along?

In this session, we will share real-life examples of senior leaders who got digital transformation right. From evaluating your tech stack to prioritizing investments and managing change internally, you’ll leave with actionable, battle-tested tips to make your next digital transformation project a success.

Fresh off its IPO and more than 500 locations strong, Dutch Bros is taking the nation by storm. Join Dutch Bros CMO John Graham and Hathway CMO Kevin Rice for an up-close look at the BROS story, the evolution of its loyalty program, and the impact of digital transformation on the Dutch Bros business.

Joshua Secrest discusses how restaurants like McDonald's, Five Guys, Wendy's, Darden and more are automating up to 95+% of their hiring process to hire more candidates, faster to gain a competitive advantage- all while returning hours each week back to their restaurant managers.
Key takeaways: 
- Dive into why conversational recruiting is the go-to hiring experience for high-volume businesses, returning hours back to hiring managers each week and transforming hiring processes
- Learn how conversational AI and automation enabled restaurants to massively increase speed to hire to hit historical hiring numbers 
- Explore how to remove friction from your application and hiring process to hire faster and get more candidates

Learn with our panel how marketing can tackle competing channels, rising inflation & labor shortages through strategic demand generation.

With billions of dollars at stake, top-performing restaurant marketers are looking for any edge they can find to grow revenues in a complex omnichannel marketplace. As the fight for their customers’ dollars becomes more heated, marketing budgets are being deployed to grow and defend wallet share as consumer preferences change and new players like third-party delivery platforms enter the market. 

In this presentation, we'll share consumer purchase insights to illustrate how consumer dining and grocery behaviors are changing and 2022’s top opportunities for restaurant leaders to acquire and retain customers.  

Learn about: 

• Where to focus in 2022
• Using purchase intelligence to understand the current state of consumer spending in dining and how to identify significant trends 
• The biggest opportunities to grow incremental revenues across categories and within in-store, online and omnichannel  

Restaurant Operators continue to acknowledge recruiting and retaining employees as the top challenge facing their business.  Gain insights from the latest workforce data and examine best practices from those who are changing the paradigm with solutions that drive engagement and retention.  This session will take a direct look at the competitive market we are in today and key drivers that influence a people-centric culture. 

Learning Objectives:
1)    Learn the top reasons most employees leave restaurants
2)    Understand what motivates employees to come to work for you and stay longer
3)    Identify key strategies in training and development to drive retention 

The restaurant industry lost one of its giants with the passing in March of Kent Taylor, founder and longtime CEO of Texas Roadhouse. He built a $2.4 billion restaurant empire and imbued it with a culture solid enough to throw shadows. And he did it in maverick fashion, challenging fixed industry thinking with bold nonconformity. Join his handpicked successor, current Roadhouse CEO and longtime associate Jerry Morgan, in remembering one of the most unique and capable figures ever to grace the business.

Few individuals ever become iconic enough to be known by one name – Shaq. A cultural icon, Shaquille O’Neal is best known for an NBA career spanning nearly two decades and earning him the sport’s highest honors including membership in the NBA Hall of Fame. O’Neal has since pivoted that same discipline into several businesses, including television and media, and even restaurants. As a board member of Papa John’s, he has become the brand’s ambassador and investor in nine locations, in addition to his ownership over several other franchises, including Five Guys, Auntie Anne’s, and Krispy Kreme. Dedicated to overachieving, on and off the court, Shaq joins us to share his story and the lessons he learned along the way.

It's time for everyone's favorite hour … happy hour! Take a well-deserved break, and mix and mingle among the displays in the Restaurant Product Gallery. With almost 200 suppliers on display, you're sure to find all the industry-shapers within the RLC Marketplace. It's all about the connections you make and the hands you'll shake here, where suppliers and operators gather to uncover the latest solutions, sample new products and even close deals.