FCSI WW BOARD MEMBERS ADDRESS THE FUTURE OF FOODSERVICE
In October 2024, prior to the FCSI EAME Conference in Zurich, Switzerland, FCSI Worldwide board members got round the table with Foodservice Consultant to discuss the future of foodservice – exploring challenges, changes, trends and opportunities
PANEL PARTICIPANTS: Eric Norman FCSI, President, FCSI Worldwide (EN) Christine Guyott FCSI, Chair, FCSI The Americas (CG) Ben Gregoire FCSI, Chair, FCSI Asia Pacific (BG) Jürg Luginbühl FCSI, VP and treasurer, FCSI EAME (JL) Moderator: Michael Jones, Foodservice Consultant (MJ) Sponsor: Meghan Daro, The Middleby Corporation
MJ: How buoyant is the industry in your region? Is there still lots of potential
for growth? JL: In Switzerland, it’s plateauing. Consultants in the region are quite busy. If you look at hotels, from 2022 to today they have increased overnight occupancy by 10% so that’s quite good for the domestic situation. Internationally it’s a little bit harder, because Switzerland has a strong currency, but there is an unstable international situation. But tourism is still growing and there is a lot of construction in Switzerland. And people are coming back to work, so the restaurants are getting full again.
CG: It’s still booming in the US. People are getting busier. Our books are full. We probably had our best year ever as a firm. I don’t think all segments for us are busy, though. Te larger projects are doing well, but there’s also a lot of master planning going on, which usually happens when people are a little concerned about how much money to spend, but I don’t see any plateau at this point. Usually in an election year people start questioning investment and are not sure what they should do, but we really haven’t seen that this year.
BG: In Asia, everybody’s busier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the fees they are getting are more than they used to be. People are working a lot harder for the same amount they used to make. But there’s a lot of work out there. Markets like Macau have bounced back. Tere’s a lot of
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