Let’s do a deeper dive into the trends that emerged from last week’s HOST show in Milano.

Clearly, the foodservice supply industry is recognizing that the relationship between the front of the house (foh) and the back of the house (boh) is being disrupted.

Facilities are emerging that have kitchens without seating, dining rooms without kitchens, or foh/boh inter-playing in a multitude of combinations between them .

Sinaqua multi colored warmers

Equipment manufacturers have responded with kitchen appliances that are colorful, attractive, and engaging enough to be seen and admired by patrons. 

There is no let-up in the variety of ventless offerings, allowing kitchens of sizes ranging from a single cooking appliance right up to production facilities to be built in virtually any space. 

Wells Ventless

Hand-in-hand with this trend is the preponderance of electric only offerings.

Mibrasa Charcoal oven
As a counter-balance to this, solid fuel cooking seemed ubiquitous on the show floor with charcoal ovens pumping out exquisitely prepared proteins and vegetables.

Mobility now rules both functionally, and intriguingly as a design theme.  Eco-salvaged furnishings reflect a post-industrial, post-apocalyptic chic prominently featuring bicycle, automotive and motorcycle components.

Double Sided Cooking

Speed preparation ruled the show floor.  Show attendees witnessed riffs on simultaneous two-sided cooking, sonic wave protein maturation devices, and multiple function/ multiple energy source appliances everywhere


Tech showed well at the event too including robots, AI, data management, and cloud-controlled facilities.

Martin Flusberg of Powerhouse Dynamics
Martin Flusberg of Powerhouse Dynamics

The notions of what it means to serve food are being challenged, and the suppliers to HORECA have stepped up their game in a herculean effort to respond.  Expect an avalanche of wholesale changes to surround us in the coming years.


Mobility

Puns for Educated Minds…Enjoy!

The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.


I thought I saw an eye-doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

She was only a whisky-maker, but he loved her still.

A rubber-band pistol was confiscated from an algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

A hole has been found in the nudist-camp wall. The police are looking into it.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: ‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head.’

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’

The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In a democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you’d be in Seine.

A vulture carrying two dead raccoons boards an airplane. The stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.’

Two fish swam into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says, ‘Dam!’

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says, ‘Are you sure?’
The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root-canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.