Month: July 2012

With U.S. restaurant visits and consumer spending increasing after a recessionary slump, a more upbeat industry posted a 0.5 percent gain in restaurant counts in Spring 2012, according to the  most recent restaurant census conducted by The NPD Group, a leading market research company. Total restaurant units reached 592,960, an increase of 2,872 units and the first positive change since 2009. …

Sodexo and Unilever on Tuesday celebrated Feeding Our Future®, an annual summer program that provided more than 22,000 free meals to local youth this summer. Volunteers from Sodexo, Unilever, and The Campus Kitchens Project gathered at Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center with more than 125 area children to celebrate the program's success and educate the program participants on the benefits of healthy eating. …

ARAMARK will create an ARAMARK Building Community Opportunity Zone that will be a hub for ongoing nutrition and wellness programs at Southwest Improvement Council (SWIC), which provides health and human services programs, affordable housing, meals for senior citizens and other services to underserved neighborhoods of west Denver. In partnership with the SWIC, the company will also launch a series of health and wellness workshops to help combat health issues facing many local residents …

When the talent of over five hundred years of cumulative culinary experience assembles in one room at The French Pastry School of Kennedy-King College at City Colleges of Chicago, someone must be in for a treat. When that gathering lasts for two days moving from one Chicago institution to the next, it’s a sign that L’Académie Culinaire de France (The Culinary Academy of France, ACF) and Les Maîtres Cuisiniers de France (The Master Chefs of France, MCF) are in town for the annual conference of their North American Chapters. …