Taking place at the impressive Melia Castilla Hotel in Madrid, Spain, the FCSI EAME conference, organised by Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI) saw 270 participants in attendance, a 37% growth from the 2013 conference in Warsaw, with over 100 professional FCSI consultants at the event.
With the conference theme of ‘Innovation generation’, speaker sessions included sustainable futures, Building Information Modelling (BIM), pan-European facilities management (FM) and working overseas.
A final presentation on day one came from José Manuel Fernández Bosch, commercial director at Spanish airport company Aena, who gave the foodservice perspective from his firm’s 46 airports across Spain and other nations, responsible for servicing 200 million passengers in 2014.
Bosch said: “We have 321 restaurants and F&F units over 121,000 sq m making €400m each year, F&B plays a key role in the ideal airport commercial layout. For us it’s about transforming the customers’ needs into a complete and coherent offer.”
Day two of the conference featured a series of presentations from three sets of young students in the European hospitality industry shortlisted for the EAME Student Competition Finals.
Pitching for a €2,500 prize for first place, the students presented their ideas on innovative projects for the F&B industry to the conference attendees. First place was won by German Alexander Eychmuller who showcased his ‘Mystery Cooking’ solution, a programme whereby chefs and consultants can check on cooking quality and process in restaurants in a similar way to the mystery shopper concept used in retail.
Olivia Mutonono from the UK took second place for her high-tech interactive table ‘Modish Restaurant’ concept, while German’s Christina Warter and Jasmin Eitzenberger won third place for their ‘Culinary Tourism’ web-based concept.
At the gala dinner on the evening of 28 March the Consultants Design award was jointly awarded to Gareth Sefton FCSI, for his work on Heston Blumenthal’s Perfectionists’ Café at Heathrow Airport, and Promoz Cernigoj for his Tamnjam project; Winterhalter picked up the Manufacturer’s award for their PT Pass-Through Dishwasher, while the Lifetime achievement award was given to Vic Laws MBE FCSI.