We’re back from the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo (Western Food Show), sponsored by the California Restaurant Association, which took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center on August 23-25. With over 450 exhibitors and 30 events and educational seminars and 8,000+ attendees, the show highlighted the latest trends and innovations in foodservice, including healthy foods, international and ethnic foods, allergy friendly foods, etc. The mystery box and cooking competitions definitely felt inspired by Food Network shows. We saw a lot of products made with coconut, including mochi ice cream and we were impressed by the automated onigiri (rice ball) maker.
On the frozen yogurt front, we didn’t see much that was new – either on the product (frozen yogurt mix) or equipment side. There were new products in the refrigerated yogurt, soft serve ice cream and soft serve gelato space. Fosselman’s of Alhambra, CA recently introduced a premium soft serve ice cream in two flavors: chocolate and vanilla. Milkshakes can easily be created with their new soft serve shake mixes. Karoun Dairies has a new line of Greek yogurt called Blue Isle.
Our partner, Payality, was an exhibitor. Payality provides imaginative solutions for every phase of the employment lifecycle. From Payroll, Human Resources, Employee Benefits, Worker’s Compensation Payment Administration, and Retirement Solutions, Payality’s comprehensive compliance solutions reduce their client’s costs, increase efficiency and streamline operations across the client’s business.
Frozen Yogurt Relevant Vendors
Frozen Bean/Gelato Lab offers over 100 flavors of soft serve gelato, as well as sorbetto and Greek frozen yogurt. They weren’t serving any froyo samples. The product is made by combining their dry mix with milk or water.
Presidential Foodservice Equipment & Supplies brought a variety of equipment, including a sl
ushie machine, ice machine, and soft serve machine filled with Honey Hill Farms froyo. They were the only vendor with a froyo toppings bar. Presidential distributes Pasmo soft serve machines; three models are available. They also offer custom print cups and spoons.
Stoelting/Superior Freezers brought their soft serve machines but no samples.
http://www.superiorfreezers.com/
Sweet Chills distributes Rainbow’s End and Miss Karen’s frozen yogurt. Rainbow’s End now offers soft serve gelato.
Taylor Freeze
rs of California, which is celebrating 50 years as a Taylor distributor, brought a variety of equipment including a soft serve machine with Flavor Burst attachments. One machine with two Flavor Burst cabinets and attachments can serve 17 different flavors of soft serve frozen yogurt (or ice cream). The technology can blend the flavor with the vanilla base (the Flavor Blend process) or put the flavor on the outside of the swirl (Flavor Burst). It can operate as a self serve machine.
Taylor Freezers has five offices in California and Nevada. The pictures from their 50 year history were fascinating – some of the older models were stunning (so beautiful).
Although the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo is much larger than the Reliant Expo, the Reliant Expo had much more froyo.
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