Retail & FoodService

Winners were announced in the Best Dish in North Carolina competition, which showcases restaurants using local ingredients. Organizers said 2012 was one of the most competitive years yet. …

Tony’s Fine Foods and Ideal Food Products, Inc., a Portland, Oregon area perishable foods distributor, announced today Tony’s has acquired substantially all of the assets of Ideal Foods. Tony’s will begin operations in the Paci!c Northwest from Ideal’s modern distribution facility located in Ridge!eld, Washington. …

Consumers pulled back from visits to midscale and casual dining restaurants in the April, May, and June quarter continuing a four-year streak of visit losses for the full service segment, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research company. The +1 percent growth in quick service restaurant (QSR) traffic compared to the same period last year offset the full service losses to keep total industry traffic stable in the second calendar quarter, reports NPD’s foodservice market research. …

Frontline International, Inc., one of this year’s winners of the National Restaurant Association’s 2012 Kitchen Innovations Award, offers Smart Oil Management solutions that work together as a completely hands-free system for filling fryers with fresh oil and draining waste oil from fryers. Automatically, with just a push of a button, the fryer is filled with oil. Push another button, and used oil is automatically drained from the fryer and goes directly to a waste oil containment tank. No messy pouring oil or toting buckets of hot grease. Your employees will never touch cooking oil again. …

High Liner Foods (USA), Inc., the leading seafood company in North America, today announced the launch of Yuengling® Lager Breaded Clam Strips, the newest addition to its Icelandic® Seafood foodservice brand’s Yuengling Lager product line. …