The 2012 New York Bar and Restaurant Show Recap

This year’s 13th annual New York Bar and Restaurant Show at the Javits Center in New York was just as great as those in years past!

One of our favorite perks about working in the foodservice industry is getting to attend the awesome tradeshows, especially the Bar and Restaurant Show. While business is always priority number one at any trade show we attend, the Bar and Restaurant Show is always packed with tasty samples of food and drinks, and just walking the floor is worth the price of admission.

The first observation upon entry was that this year’s event had a full house! The Bar and Restaurant Show always draws a good attendance, but it seemed like every single booth was sold. So it appeared that not only were there a vast amount of attendees, but also a tone of exhibitors.

Speaking of exhibitors, the companies who were exhibiting were incredibly diverse.
Walking around the floor we noticed that all 6 major continents (Sorry Antarctica) were represented, and that this show had a global presence with representation from the entire international community.

Be it wineries from South Africa and Australia, Rum producers from Latin America, Exotic liquor brands from Europe and Asia, or startup micro brewers from the USA, the exhibitors has something for everyone.  Bar and restaurant owners could make plans to stock their bar with whatever they desire, and the options were great!

Because of this incredibly unique opportunity to sample different beverages from all around the world, we also noticed a much more diverse crowd than in years past. In addition to all of the industry professionals who attended the show primarily for business purposes, there also appeared to be a lot more “curious civilians” in attendance. There is a plethora of samples being offered from booth to booth, and it is easy for one to truly diversify their pallet.

One additional observation that we were glad to see at this years show was the way that they consolidated some of the booths and improved the logistics. They had grouped like industries, so the Brewers were close together, as were the rum distributers, and Inventory Management companies, etc. While this made more logistical sense for the attendees, it likely created a higher sense of urgency between competitors. However, having competitors battle over consumers’ attention is ultimately good for innovation and the economy, so we welcome the change.

Additionally, we at CHD Expert are still the only company who collects and manages data specifically for the away from home foodservice industry and we are proud to stand alone in this segment of the industry.

The Importance of Foodservice Analytics: 5 Steps To Identifying New Customers

In any industry, its really important to be able to generate new business. One of the best ways to generate business is by utilizing your internal customer database and up-selling existing customers with new products and services. One of the things that we always say in marketing is it’s more cost effecient to sell to existing customers as opposed to obtaining new ones. But, in order to use your database, you have to be able to understand your data to find the most viable leads.

This is where foodservice analytics comes into play and we have the perfect tool to help you identify your best customers and help you find new ones. CHD Expert’s SmartFIND, is a Business Intelligence program that helps foodservice industry professionals detect prospects with the highest propensity to buy your organization’s products and helps you to anticipate the needs of your current customers and prospects.

Here is a brief description on our analytical process on how we can provide your business with insight.

First, CHD Expert takes a copy of your customer database. We then clean it up by de-duping the data, if necessary. Then, we take your database and  match it against the CHD Expert Foodservice Industry National Database  (FIND) to create unique customer profiles. Next we identified the common variables that best describe your customers. Once we’ve created the common profile or profiles for your current customers, we then identify other Operators in the FIND Database, who are not currently customers, but are the closet “match” to your existing “most valuable customers” that we identified through the profiles.

If you have any questions about foodservice analytics or how CHD Expert can help your business, contact us. One of our sales representative would gladly walk you through a demo or answer any of your questions. To sign up now to speak with one of our representatives simply Click here. 

Restaurant Industry Statistics – Restaurant Operator Sales Forecast

This week we “stumbled” upon a bunch of great infographics put together by our friends at The National Restaurant Association. Using Pinterest,  the newest form of social media, the NRA has put together a dedicated board for restaurant industry statistics. Take a quick look at their board as they have some really insightful infographics about the restaurant industry. Just as a friendly reminder, an infographic is a visual representation of information, data or knowledge.

One of the infographics we want to call out is the one titled, “Restaurant Operators Sales Outlook.” The reason why we really like this infographic is because of the powerful data used to put together the visual. We are seeing that fast food, casual dining and find-dining operators are all expecting to see a positive sales trends in the next six months.  Check out the infographic below:

Source: nrn.com via Nation’s Restaurant on Pinterest

As we provide restaurant data to our Clients, we love seeing positive forecasts like this. To learn more about our foodservice database or what other products and services we offer to foodservice channel members, check out our website at CHD-Expert.com or register for a 30-Day Free Demo and to speak with one of our experts now!

CHD Expert North America and AFS Technologies form strategic partnership

CHD Expert North America, LLC, the leader in collecting, managing and analyzing data for the Away-from-Home Global Foodservice Market, announces the strategic partnership with AFS Technologies. Combined with existing CHD Expert solutions, this partnership offers unparalleled visibility for foodservice manufacturers to all channels in CPG supply chain.

 This newly formed strategic partnership will allow AFS to provide an unparalleled solution to foodservice channel members, in both North America and Europe. “This strategic partnership, along with existing AFS solutions, will help our customers gain insight into sales patterns in the CPG supply chain”, commented Kurien Jacob, AFS CEO. “AFS is focused on connecting manufacturers, brokers, distributors, and operators to improve channel visibility for all related partners.”

This solution is focused specifically to help manufacturers address two major challenges within both finance and sales, including: identification of multi-dip payments and sales void opportunities.

“The combined solution collects and manages disparate data sources from manufacturers, distributors, and operators and combines this with the rich metric data from CHD Expert. Additionally, the combination of data and easy-to-use solution provides an incredibly rich and intelligent application, by which sales can begin to segment and target Operator opportunities,” said Cathy Kearns, CHD GM.

Manufacturer’s back office accounting will also benefit, as the solution will identify multi-dip payments, requested payments outside of deal window, and other related compliance issues. “Research and resolution of these issues typically takes dozens of man hours,” said Tim Vollman, head of partnerships at AFS. “And now users will have the visibility at their fingertips!”

Check out this press release on our website. Click here.

About CHD North America

CHD Expert is the worldwide leader in collecting, managing and analyzing data for the Away-from-Home Global Foodservice Market. For more than 10 years CHD Expert has been dedicated to support Foodservice channel members in providing a global vision and an in-depth understanding of the industry (in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific).

Our objective is to support food service providers in their sales and marketing strategies by providing the most comprehensive and accurate foodservice census, housing operator intelligence for more than 4 million operators worldwide. For additional information, please visit http://www.chd-expert.com or call1-888-CHD-0154.

About AFS Technologies Inc.

AFS Technologies Inc. is the leading provider of business enterprise and on-demand software solutions. The company serves over 1,500 customers across the Americas with a portfolio of solutions for the food, beverage, logistics and financial segments. AFS logistics solutions and AFS food and beverage solutions are designed to reduce costs, improve efficiency, increase sales and margins, streamline internal processes, and assist in regulatory compliance. All AFS solutions utilize service-oriented architecture (SOA) built with Microsoft .NET framework technology. With a focus on modular design, the solutions allow customers in manufacturing, sales agencies, distribution, and complex software companies the flexibility to upgrade specific elements of the software without affecting the rest of the system. To match the needs of our diverse customer base, products are available on both a license and true SaaS model basis. For additional information, please visit http://www.afsi.com or call (602) 522-8282.

Database Management: Answers about Database Cleansing, Matching & Appending

With many ways to correctly and incorrectly manage data, sometimes even the
terms can get confusing. Well, not to worry because we are experts in  database management.

Terms like data scrubbing, data cleaning, data design, data storage, data security, or our favorite “dirty data”  are all part of the data management process. According to Data Management International or DAMA, international data management is “the development and execution of architectures, policies, practices and procedures that properly manage the full data lifecycle needs of an enterprise.” Needless to say, there is a lot that goes into the process.

So now that we have a brief introduction, lets talk about Database cleansing.

According to Wikipedia Database cleansing is the “process of detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or inaccurate records from a record set, table, or database. Used mainly in databases, the term refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, irrelevant, etc. parts of the data and then replacing, modifying, or deleting this dirty data.”

Or simply put, going through your current database and making sure that all of the information is up to date and accurate.

Now as a business it is important that both your database and data are clean of any errors. An example we hear from our clients all the time is when someone on their sales team is trying to market and sell to their potential customers and half of their information is incorrect. This happens all of the time, especially in the foodservice industry. One of the greatest challenges we help foodservice industry professionals with, is keeping track of foodservice industry data. With the amount of turn over in the industry, it is very important for businesses to keep up. But the good news is that this is what we specialize in. We are the global experts in collecting, managing, segmenting, and analyzing data from the foodservice industry.

We hope that this brief description helps to clear up some confusion. And, if you have more questions about database management, we’d be happy to answer them. Whether your looking to have your data cleaned and matched, get some clean data of your own, or just to ask questions, give us a call, CHD Expert is here to help out.