By now, you’ve certainly seen loads of eating places in your metropolis or county shut. It’s a tragic reality: throughout an financial recession, the foodservice trade will endure casualties. Fortunately, the pizza class, as an entire, sometimes fares higher than different eating segments when the monetary markets tighten.
However the present recession isn’t a minor one, and it’s unrealistic to assume that tons of, or probably even 1000’s, of pizza institutions received’t exit of enterprise in 2009.
Is your pizzeria secure from the storm? Are you feeling the stress? Is each aspect of your operation working as effi ciently and profi tably as attainable?
In the event you really feel in the least unsure about your speedy or long-term viability, offi cials at Worldwide Pizza Expo say they’ve assist for you. In actual fact, they are saying, attending the tradeshow this yr is extra essential than ever earlier than.
“Attending an trade tradeshow even throughout an financial slowdown — is one of the best automobile to acquire new information, perception and concepts that may enable you place your pizzeria for future progress and prosperity,” says Invoice Oakley, government vice chairman of Macfadden Protech LLC, which produces Worldwide Pizza Expo in addition to publishes Pizza Right this moment.
This yr’s present is scheduled for March 10-12 on the Las Vegas Conference Middle, and it occurs to be the Expo’s twenty fifth Anniversary.
“As an unbiased pizzeria proprietor, chances are you’ll be underneath stress and apprehensive about the way you’re going to outlive on this new financial system,” Oakley says. “The actual fact is, chances are you’ll have to decelerate as a way to velocity up what you are promoting. You may additionally have to do some artistic pondering to provide you with some revolutionary advertising and marketing concepts to spice up what you are promoting.”
Jeffrey Freehof, who pens the “Ask Chef Jeff” column in Pizza Right this moment and likewise leads seminars at Worldwide Pizza Expo, has seen the tradeshow up shut and private from either side of the aisle: earlier than he was concerned with the conference, he was an avid annual attendee. Nonetheless is, he insists. As proprietor of The Garlic Clove in Evans, Georgia, he has a enterprise to run and will get a lot of his concepts on the Expo. Freehof says he agrees with the evaluation that strolling the present fl oor and attending the seminars this yr is extra essential than ever.
“Eating places are closing throughout me, and issues are definitely tighter than ever,” he says. “I’m sure one of many causes I’m nonetheless standing is due to all that I collect at Pizza Expo, whether or not it’s advertising and marketing concepts or money-saving instruments and tools. Regardless that I’m busy giving demos, as an operator I make time to see each sales space and all the time stroll away with concepts and product that assist me thrust ahead on this diffi cult enterprise local weather.”
Scott Anthony, a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, feels the identical means. Like Freehof, he additionally has led seminars on the tradeshow and incessantly contributes articles to Pizza Right this moment.
“For 2008, the saying was: ‘If gross sales are fl at, you probably did properly.’ Sadly, many didn’t do properly. As an trade, all of us battled excessive meals prices, elevated wages and climbing utilities within the midst of a recession. A lot of our contemporaries struggled, and a few even failed,” says Anthony.
“Pizza Expo promotes the pizza trade and its many contributions to our society. The revolutionary concepts that Expo has yielded have positively modified the way in which I do enterprise. The conferences at Pizza Expo have stored me from being a casualty of this technique of issues. My gross sales have been up two p.c in 2008. Reaffi rming relationships with distributors and sharing concepts with fellow operators at Beer & Bull are very important to maintain up with trade developments. Now, greater than ever, I see the must be there and be on high of my recreation.”
The seminar lineup, says Oakley, is designed to propel pizzerias to elevated profi tability. “The one factor that actually separates Worldwide Pizza Expo from all the different basic foodservice reveals is our instructional element,” he says. “There’s not one other meals present round the place you’ll fi nd 60-plus seminars and demonstrations dedicated to a single trade, besides Worldwide Pizza Expo. In actual fact, I wish to assume our pizzafocused seminars and demonstrations alone are well worth the value of admission. However the backside line is that there’s all the time one thing new you’ll be able to study or see at Pizza Expo that can enhance your pizzeria and backside line.” ?
