Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/679164
R e s t a u r a n t D a i l y N e w s F r i d a y, M a y 2 0 , 2 0 1 6 1 8 DAYMARK HELPS BUILD A BETTER GRAB-AND-GO LABELING PROGRAM An interview with Bill Curtis, Vice President of Sales for DayMark Safety Systems North America. RDN: What types of restaurants have been the most successful with grab-and- go programs? BC: Grab-and-go can be utilized by any type of establishment that features a retail section in its business. DayMark has worked with all types of foodservice opera- tors, from full-service restaurants and hospi- tals to convenience stores and food courts. RDN: What methods are you seeing restaurants employ with regard to grab- and-go? What sort of trends are begin- ning to take shape? BC: Operators are continually changing or tweaking their menu to keep up with industry trends and customer demands. Competition requires their offerings to be fresh and current. Additionally, the label is becoming more and more impor- tant as the requirements of the label con- tinue to change. Operators are providing their customers with nutritional infor- mation, ingredients and identifying allergens. It also has become a market- ing tool that using methods such as QR codes can help drive customers to web- sites, loyalty programs and other con- tent. RDN: How can foodservice operators best utilize the DayMark 9700 for grab- and-go product labels? BC: The DayMark 9700 gives operators the ability to try new things, react to trends and easily make any changes. This allows for new menu items, limited time offerings and daily specials. They can change ingredients, pricing and portion without ordering new cus- tom printed labels. More impor- tantly, after a change is implemented, there are no old labels to be discarded. Changes can be managed at the location level or from one central location to pro- vide brand consistency. RDN: How are restaurants benefiting from grab-and-go programs and the DayMark 9700? Are there any sort of hidden/fringe benefits that are being real- ized? BC: The DayMark 9700 provides opera- tors the freedom to manage grab-and-go items with the same agility as the rest of their business. Establishments are no longer tied to the list of items that match their current printed label inventory. One casual dining restaurant chain with near- ly 600 locations has successfully consolidated 40 custom labels into a single custom label template for all of its retail bakery items; one of our commercial foodservice opera- tors has noted that they are in con- trol of their labeling system, not the other way around. RDN: What do you foresee the future holding for grab-and-go? BC: Most agree that the only constant for the future of labeling requirements is that it will continue to evolve. The 9700 will allow an operator to quickly adapt with any new requirements. It takes the guess- work out of predicting label requirements and allows our customers to focus on their menus and guests. For more information, including how to order the DayMark 9700 Label Terminal, visit www.daymarksafety.com, call 800.847.0101 toll-free or visit DayMark at booth #1113. QUICK FLIP PAN – NO MORE LABELS An interview with Sean Maher, Ecomarks Plastics Founder and Chief Executive Officer. RDN: What is Ecomarks Plastics? SM: Ecomarks Plastics is the manufac- turer of the QUICK FLIP PAN. RDN: What is the QUICK FLIP PAN? SM: It's our new invention that just received the Kitchen Innovations Award by the National Restaurant Association. It's similar to the current standard food plastic storage pan, but ours has an embedded template. That's the innova- tion. RDN: How did you come up with this idea? SM: I operate a full service restaurant, and every year we are supposed to show an increase in revenue. That means I have to generate more sales and/or decrease my costs. One of the costs that always frustrated me was my monthly label costs. Labels can be very expensive, and plus they are time consuming and some- times a pain to work with. Every time someone uses a label, it has to be in stock and nothing can be wet in order to fill out and adhere the label. To remove them, we often have to run the pans in the dish- washer two or three times, and if that doesn't work, we use a scraper or a chemical to get them off. For all these reasons and probably some I missed is why I came up with the QUICK FLIP PAN. I kept thinking to myself, there has to be a cheaper and better way than using these adhesive labels. After I thought of the idea, I reached out to Robert Mil, who has been in the business for a long time, to get his opinion on the idea. He became the second partner of the company. I then contacted Lisa Latimer, a very experi- enced mechanical and design engineer to see if this could be made. She became the third partner and the three of us developed the idea and brought it to where it is today. RDN: Is your product more expensive than the regular pan? SM: Not exactly. RDN: What do you mean? SM: We figured out the average price of these pans from the various pan manu- facturers. Our price is staying at that average or within 10 percent of that aver- age price. We made sure we worked with a manufacturer in the United States that could make our product perfect, afford- able, with the same quality as industry standards and keep up with demand. We developed a great relationship with DaMar Plastics out of San Diego, California. They have become a great partner to Ecomarks Plastics. We are going to save restaurants a ton of money by drastically reducing their monthly label cost and improving their bottom line. Imagine this analogy: I am going to offer you the best and newest flat screen TV all for the price of a regular flat screen TV – and it comes with free cable for life! RDN: Where can someone get the QUICK FLIP PAN? SM: Come visit me at the NRA Show KI Pavilion in the South Hall booth #2440 and I'll set up a purchase order for you! For more information, visit the KI Award Pavilion in the South Hall, booth #2440. RENAU'S NEXT GENERATION FLUSH-MOUNT TOUCHSCREEN CONTROLS FEATURE CAPACITIVE TOUCH Renau's highly successful UCM-1200 Series of capacitive touchscreen controls will now be complemented by a whole new family of flush-mount capacitive touchscreens designed specifically with the foodservice industry in mind: the UCM-1443 and UCM-1470, both avail- able in horizontal or vertical configura- tions for added flexibility. Like Renau's other capacitive touch solutions, these state-of-the-art capacitive touchscreens can easily be operated by users wearing gloves. Now available in a standard 4.3-inch (UCM-1443) or jumbo-sized 7-inch (UCM-1470) display, the UCM-1400 Series offers equipment operators a sophisticated control that can be config- ured and installed either horizontally or vertically on the front of a controlled appliance. Measuring less than 0.91 inch- es deep, the UCM-1400 Series is com- pact and versatile enough to allow equip- ment manufacturers to mount it on virtu- ally any available panel space, including from inside the unit (allowing the display screen to be perfectly flush with the front panel). Using Renau's Single Wire Communication Network, the UCM- 1400 Series connects to any of Renau's compact, powerful hybrid micro process controllers to power even the most inten- sive and demanding applications. Equipment operators and customers see a sleek, vibrant color display that can easi- ly be mounted anywhere on the appliance while keeping the process controller inside of the controlled equipment, reducing the need for expensive and complicated harnesses. With the ability to quickly and easily access and select programs, as well as full support for Day Part Programming, training equipment operators to use the UCM-1400 Series is fast and simple. Equipment operators can quickly and easily read the UCM-1400 Series' high-resolu- tion color display from across the kitchen, and because the screen is the interface, use is incredibly intuitive, easy and designed to help reduce operator error and food waste. The UCM-1400 Series can even help guide a service tech- nician through troubleshooting and repair. Easily upgradeable and fully repro- grammable, the UCM-1400 Series allows recipe menus and system configurations to be quickly updated through the media- tion of Renau's Universal Host Adaptor (UHA) and custom Windows-based soft- ware, which allows for the creation of custom recipe menus, warning alarms, sound files and system configurations that can be stored on an authorized user's hard drive for future use and reference, or for larger organizations, e- mailed to a remote colleague. When it comes time to update the system, simply save the desired file onto a USB flash drive and reprogram the prod- ucts with the use of a Renau UHA Series Adaptor. The UCM-1400 Series is also completely compatible with the Renau's new WHA Series of WiFi or ISM-band wireless adapters. In order to perform in the most demanding foodservice industry environ- ments, all Renau products are fully encapsulated for outstanding protection from extreme temperatures, humidity and shock. Designed and manufactured in the United States, all Renau products are rigorously tested and come with an industry leading three-year warranty. For more information about Renau Electronic Laboratories' products and services, visit www.renau.com, stop by booth #4454 or call 818.341.1994.