Winsight—the company behind the National Restaurant Association Show, Technomic, Restaurant Business magazine, and many other media and events for the food and beverage industry—yesterday announced a special one-time-only event, Restaurant Recovery Summit (RRS), that will occur Nov. 17-19, 2020, at the Sheraton Dallas in Dallas, and virtually around the world.
Leaders of major restaurant companies will be sharing their views on the ongoing crisis, and the steps needed to recover from it. Already signed on to speak are David Gibbs of Yum! Brands, who stepped into the CEO role as the crisis was beginning; Ritch Allison of Domino’s, whose delivery model and value offerings have weathered the storm; and Paul Brown, who is building a multi-service restaurant company with Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic, Jimmy John’s and Rusty Taco. Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.
The agenda will focus on 10 key areas of the restaurant business that are rapidly evolving: consumer experience; off-premise; labor; safety, sanitation and security; technology; supply chain; finance; menu evolution; engagement/loyalty; and operations. C-suite executives from the biggest restaurant companies in the world and the fastest growing emerging brands will share their stories from the year that was, and their plans for the future.
The in-person version of RRS will be supported by a virtual component that streams recorded sessions to operators all over the world. The virtual component will occur in parallel with the live event and the weeks after so that suppliers and operators with travel bans in place can still participate. In the event the live conference cannot go on, the virtual event will still happen.
“One of the lessons of history is that calamity inspires innovation,” said Chris Keating, head of conferences for Winsight. “The restaurant industry is full of creative entrepreneurs who can work together to inspire the greatest comeback in business history.”
In addition to producing the National Restaurant Association Show, Winsight produces three conferences for leaders at chain and multi-concept independent restaurants:
- Restaurant Leadership Conference, for executives at Top 500 chains
- Restaurant Directions, for leaders of regional and emerging chains
- Global Restaurant Leadership Conference, for executives at global chains
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these events were cancelled in 2020. RRS will invite select operators, sponsors and speakers from all three of these events to join together for this one-time event.
Winsight is launching this event with the support of the National Restaurant Association, which will be sharing policy initiatives with the Winsight audience. In addition, the event will support the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund, created by the National Restaurant Association’s Educational Foundation, to help restaurant industry employees experiencing hardship in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Major industry suppliers have pledged their support to this conference and to the recovery of the industry. The Founding Sponsors are The Coca-Cola Company, IFFCO, NCR Corporation, PepsiCo Foodservice and Unilever Food Solutions. Additionally, Chowly, Ecolab, Nestle Professional, Certified Angus Beef, Hormel Foods Corporation, Procter & Gamble, NuArx, OpenCity and Welbilt have already signed on.
Winsight announced that it will be diligent in ensuring the health, safety and security of all attendees and are working to not only meet but to exceed guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and local health organizations. In addition to several new safety measures, Winsight will be creating a contactless event and have implemented an attendee capacity limit to ensure proper social distancing.
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