#LRAEXPO14: Your Weekend Planner

Celebrating its 61^st year, the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO, is August 2-4, 2014 at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center in Hall I. The EXPO is a one-stop shop for all your restaurant needs—whether they are products, services or education and is a must for restaurant owners, managers, buyers, hotel food and beverage directors and chefs. It’s the only place in Louisiana to gain valuable industry knowledge and shop hundreds of companies under one roof.

Join 2014 National Restaurant Association Chair Ken Conrad, owner of Libby Hill Restaurants in North Carolina, as he addresses the crowd and cuts the ribbon during the Opening Ceremony, Saturday, August 1 at 10:45 a.m. in the Hall I foyer.

2014 NRA Chair
Ken Conrad

“I’ve visited New Orleans five times or so and I am looking forward to my trip for the EXPO,” Conrad said. “I own seafood restaurants and coming to a great seafood city like New Orleans is a wonderful treat for me and my family.”

As the EXPO opens (at 11 a.m.), crowds pour onto the show floor just in time for the Great American Seafood Cook-Off (GASCO) opening celebration. Attendees will hear the sirens, which signals the start of a mini-parade complete with a marching band, Mardi Gras Indians and mini-floats, which traverses one end of the show ending at the GASCO stages in Hall J. Nineteen chefs, including New Orleans’ own Aaron Burgau of Patois Restaurant, will compete for the title of King or Queen of American Seafood. GASCO is produced by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Having GASCO as part of the LRA’s EXPO demonstrates our industry’s commitment to promoting not only Gulf seafood, but all domestic seafood as a center of the plate staple in Louisiana and beyond,” said Stan Harris, LRA President/CEO.

Be sure to make some time to expand your knowledge of leading restaurant industry trends, issues and best practices in the third annual IDEA ZONE. On Saturday, express sessions cover topics such as: grow your restaurant brand/concept; top tax benefits that exist for restaurant owners; promoting profits and preventing loss behind the bar; and what can I really charge my employees; and more.  On Sunday, you’ll have the chance to learn about: updates on the Affordable Care Act; how to price a menu for off-site catering; food allergies: myths busted; and more. Monday’s IDEA ZONE features the LRA Self Insurer’s Fund annual safety seminar and beef flavor fundamentals.

During the EXPO, the 2^nd Annual Farm to Table International Symposium takes place and LRA members receive discounted admission to attend numerous sessions examining “The Process.”  The symposium, produced in partnership with the SoFAB Institute and the LSU AgCenter, brings together the leading practitioners in the growing farm-to-table movement to explore the cultivation, distribution and consumption of food and drink sourced locally while presenting the opportunity to connect consumers, chefs and producers.

To maximize your EXPO experience, be sure to take a few minutes to map out your journey by creating your Personalized Show Guide. This feature allows you advance review of all the exhibiting companies, some longtime favorites and more than 50 new companies, you’ve never seen at the show before.

We can’t wait to see you in New Orleans this weekend! If you haven’t registered, click here.

Thank you to this year’s Platinum Sponsors!

Heartland Payment Systems, Louisiana Cookin’, Capital One, Republic National Distributing Company, UnitedHealthcare, Glazer’s of Louisiana, Louisiana Restaurant Association Self Insurer’s Fund and the LRA Education Foundation.

Gold Sponsors—Midlands, Generations Hall & Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses; and Silver Sponsors—Fisher & Phillips, LLP; Johnson, Johnson, Barrios & Yacoubian and Hailey, McNamara, Hall, Larmann & Papale, LLP.

Ag Under Secretary Edward Avalos to address F2Ti Symposium

Edward Avalos, Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, has been announced as the closing keynote speaker at the Farm to Table International Symposium (F2Ti), August 2 – 4, 2014 at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, held in conjunction with the Louisiana Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO. 

 

Edward Avalos, Under Secretary for
Marketing & Regulatory Programs
at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture is the
closing keynote speaker at the 2nd
Farm to Table International Symposium.

In his role with the USDA, Avalos has worked on “buy local” initiatives, Indian agriculture and numerous promotional and trade activities with industry organizations and other stakeholder groups.

Among the topics to be included in Under Secretary Avalos’ address are the Farm Bill and how it will impact small famers, local and regional food systems, and organic agriculture. He will also discuss the technical assistance USDA has provided FDA throughout the development of their produce safety regulations within the Food Safety Modernization Act.

Avalos grew up on a family farm in the Mesilla Valley of Southern New Mexico.  Prior to his appointment at USDA, he served as Director of Marketing and Development at the New Mexico Dept. of Agriculture.  He has over 30 years of experience in livestock and agriculture marketing in both the domestic and international arenas.  Avalos has spent considerable time working closely with producers to address industry demands; with distributors to ensure timely and feasible delivery of goods; and with retailers to showcase, promote, sell, merchandise, and inform the consumer utilizing numerous promotional and educational tools.

Avalos holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Agriculture from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The symposium, produced in partnership with the SoFAB Institute and the LSU AgCenter, brings together the leading practitioners in the growing farm-to-table movement to explore the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of food and drink sourced locally while presenting the opportunity to connect consumers and chefs and producers.

This year’s theme, “The Process,” examines the agricultural-culinary cycle at all levels and will feature its own organic fertility research project. Topics include the best practices for urban farming, bringing products to market, sourcing locally, sustainability, and the latest on the imposing Food Safety Modernization Act. Chef Michel Nischan, CEO, Wholesome Wave, is this year’s Chairman.

Destined to become the single most important annual forum on farm-to-table topics, F2Ti occurs concurrently with the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s 61st Annual Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO; F2Ti attendees will have access to the almost 200,000 square feet of exhibits.

Detailed schedule information can be viewed here.

2nd Farm to Table International Symposium examines "The Process"

Held in conjunction with the Louisiana Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO August 2-4 in New Orleans at the Convention Center, the Farm to Table International Symposium (F2T) brings together the brightest thought leaders and leading practitioners in the burgeoning farm-to-table movement. F2T explores the cultivation, distribution and consumption of food and drink sourced locally to globally.

This year’s theme, “The Process,” examines the agricultural-culinary cycle at all levels and will feature its own organic urban farm research project, in partnership with the LSU Ag Center and the SoFAB Institute. Panel sessions include fisheries: Aquaculture and Wild Caught; GMO and Labeling, Home Cooking and Processed Foods, Indigenous Crops, Indigenous Cuisine, Institutional F2T and the Role of Government, Distributing Craft Beverage: the Hard and the Soft, to name just a few.

Michel Nischan
2014 F2Ti Keynote Speaker

This year’s keynote speaker is Michel Nischan, a restaurateur, award-winning cookbook author, media personality and food policy advocate. Nischan is also the CEO and president of Wholesome Wave, a non-profit foundation dedicated to nourishing neighborhoods by supporting increased and access to healthy, fresh and affordable locally grown food for the well-being of all. A proponent of sustainable farming, local and regional food systems, and heritage recipes, Nischan has long been a leader in the movement to honor local, pure, simple and delicious cooking.

From farming and aquaculture, fisheries, sustainability, social and digital interactive media, food security, safety, food law and policy, the F2T topics are designed to immerse attendees into the heart of all this and best practices, food science and fair trade.

LRA members receive a 20 percent discount off registration fees by using the code: F2TLRA. Visit www.f2t-int.com for more information and to register. 

Schedule released for 2014 Farm To Table International Symposium

The Farm To Table International Symposium (F2Ti) has released the schedule for the 2014 event, August 2 – 4 at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, in partnership with the SoFAB Institute and the LSU AgCenter. The symposium will bring together the leading practitioners in the growing farm-to-table movement to explore the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of food and drink sourced locally while presenting the opportunity to connect consumers and chefs and producers.

This year’s theme, “The Process,” examines the agricultural-culinary cycle at all levels and will feature its own organic fertility research project. Topics will include the best practices for urban farming, bringing products to market, sourcing locally, sustainability, and the latest on the imposing Food Safety Modernization Act. Chef Michel Nischan, CEO, Wholesome Wave, is this year’s Chairman.

Destined to become the single most important annual forum on farm-to-table topics, F2Ti occurs concurrently with the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s 61st Annual Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO; F2Ti attendees will have access to the almost 200,000 square feet of exhibits.

LRA members receive a 20 percent discount off registration fees for F2Ti. To register visit www.f2t-int.com and enter the code F2TLRA. Detailed schedule information can be viewed here.

Top reasons to attend the EXPO—August will be here before you know it!

Celebrating its 61^st year, the Louisiana Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO is a one-stop shop for all your restaurant needs—whether they are products, services or education. While the benefits are many, it’s always helpful to be reminded of why it’s an excellent idea to make the short trip to New Orleans this summer. Here are some of great things that you have to look forward to…

The EXPO is a must for restaurant owners, managers, buyers, hotel food and beverage directors and chefs. It’s the only place in Louisiana to gain valuable industry knowledge and shop hundreds of companies under one roof. 

Since its inception in 2012, the IDEA ZONE has become a fast growing draw for attendees. Expert, express presentations are held all three-days during the EXPO and cover emerging trends, best business practices and professional development. Be sure to look for the complete line-up in the summer issue of a la carte magazine and on our website.

The Great American Seafood Cook-Off will co-locate within the EXPO for the 11^th year in a row. Get a front row seat to see chefs from across the country battle it out to be crowned the King or Queen of American Seafood on Saturday, August 2, 2014. The competition takes place in the Seafood Pavilion, where attendees can find seafood offerings from Gulf Coast exhibitors and across the country. Who will represent Louisiana in the cook-off? That will be decided during the Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off, which is held at the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience, May 24 in New Orleans. The Great American Seafood Cook-Off is produced by the Louisiana Seafood Promotionand Marketing Board and sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The EXPO is held annually in New Orleans, and we want you to take full advantage. After you hit the show floor, make sure you take time to the Big Easy streets. The city, known world-wide for its ambience and culture has so much to offer. The EXPO shares the weekend with the Whitney White Linen Night and the Satchmo Summerfest, both free. And what’s a trip to New Orleans without indulging in one or two (or three) of its famous restaurants? The EXPO partners with the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau to bring attendees a useful travel website with all the fun things to do and see in the city, recently ranked the 5^th in the Top 25 U.S. Destinations by TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site. Plan your nighttime in New Orleans here.

In its second year of sponsorship, the Farm to Table International Symposium (F2Ti) will be held in conjunction with the EXPO. F2Ti features the brightest thought leaders and leading practitioners in the burgeoning farm-to-table movement. This year’s theme, “The Process,” examines the agricultural-culinary cycle at all levels and features its own organic urban farm research project, in partnership with the LSU Ag Center and the SoFAB Institute. The event will take place August 2-4 at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center.

To see the full EXPO line up, visit our website here. Register to attend the EXPO today here. 

Thank you to this year’s Platinum Sponsors!

Heartland Payment Systems, Louisiana Cookin’, CapitalOne, Republic National Distributing Company, Louisiana Restaurant Association Self Insurer’s Fund, UnitedHealthcare and the LRA Education Foundation.

Gold Sponsor—Midlands; and Silver Sponsors—Fisher & Phillips, LLP and Johnson, Johnson, Barrios & Yacoubian.

Award-winning agricultural writer William Rubel keynote speaker at F2Ti

For the first time, in conjunction with the 60^th Annual Louisiana Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO, the Farm To Table International Symposium will be held August 2-4, 2013. The inaugural symposium will feature gardener and award-winning agricultural writer William Rubel.

F2Ti Inaugural Keynote Speaker
William Rubel

Rubel is the author and 2003 James Beard Award nominee of The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking:One Hundred Recipes for Fireplace and Campfire and Bread: A Global History. He is not writing a history of bread for University of California Press. Rubel writes on small-scale agriculture and traditional foodways for Mother Earth News.

A longtime mushroom collector, Rubel’s article in Economic Botany on the historic uses of Amanita muscaria—the iconic mushroom with white dots so favored by children’s book illustrators—as a mushroom for the dinner table has inspired a reappraisal of that mushroom’s edibility. He grows his own vegetables and maintains a longstanding interest in the history of kitchen gardens and the raised-bed gardening system.

Amanita muscaria's resurgence as an edible
mushroom was reprised by William Rubel.  

 For F2Ti, Rubel’s address will provide historical context to the 21^st Century Farm-to-Table movement. He will discuss the British and French kitchen gardens attached to the big country houses of the 1600s and 1700s, which were the gardens in which the raised-bed gardening system was perfected. These gardens, which could be many acres in size, employed the latest in agricultural practices. They provided an almost unimaginable variety of vegetables and fruits through a 12-month growing season to satisfy the demands of the finest tables in Europe.

These gardens or, in our terms, small farms, offer inspiration on many levels for us today as we attempt to redevelop the type of agricultural skills that enabled those farmers to provide quality produce to a discerning clientele across the entirety of a year—Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter—despite growing in a Northern European climate. Salad all year, strawberries in January, asparagus in November—this is what the owner of a large British country house in circa 1700 expected from the kitchen garden.

Now, in too many places, we have replaced agricultural skill with cheap transportation. The history of kitchen gardens offers ideas that we can use today to revitalize our agricultural practices.

Members of the LRA receive a 20 percent discount off registration to F2Ti by using the code LRA13. Check out the schedule here.

Farm to Table International Symposium to complement EXPO

The inaugural Farm To Table International Symposium (F2Ti) features the brightest thought leaders and leading practitioners in the burgeoning farm-to-table movement. F2Ti will explore the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of food and drink sourced locally to globally. Topics will include farming and aquaculture, fisheries, sustainability, social and digital interactive media, food security and safety, food law and policy, food science and GMO, artisanal and slow food and drink, and fair trade. 

"We are pleased to have the inaugural Farm to Table International Symposium offered in conjunction with the Louisiana Foodservice and Hospitality EXPO," said Stan Harris, LRA President/CEO. "With our strong focus in Louisiana on locally sourced produce, seafood and other products, the symposium is a great fit for the EXPO and the restaurant and hospitality industries." 

The Symposium takes place in tandem with the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s 60^th Louisiana Foodservice and Hospitality EXPO, the first weekend of August.

Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner, and longtime champion of the farm to table movement, Jim Hightower will be one of several keynote speakers.

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of the book, Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow, Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought to Be—consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses and just-plain-folks.

Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that the true political spectrum is not right to left but top to bottom, and he has become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of Washington and Wall Street powers at the top.

Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots. He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations, on the web and on Radio for Peace International.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Chefs, mixologists, culinary professionals, restaurateurs, researchers, academics, policymakers, legal and financial professionals, farmers and other agricultural professionals, food and drink writers, publishers and media, slow food advocates, beverage enthusiasts, brewers, distillers, vintners, distributors, farmers markets, urban farms, nutritionists and other health professionals.  

Members of the LRA receive a 20 percent discount off registration to F2Ti by using the code LRA13. Click here for registration information and pricing.
  

Inaugural Farm to Table International Symposium Announced in New Orleans

New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and SoFAB Institute to Partner

The inaugural Farm To Table International Symposium (F2Ti), featuring the brightest thought leaders and leading practitioners in the burgeoning farm-to-table movement, will be held in New Orleans, August 2 – 4, 2013.

The August Symposium takes place in tandem with the Louisiana Restaurant Association’s Annual Foodservice & Hospitality EXPO, an event featuring related exhibits and attracting food and beverage professionals from across the Gulf South Region.

F2Ti explores the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of food and drink sourced locally to globally. Topics include farming and aquaculture, fisheries, sustainability, social and digital interactive media, food security and safety, food law and policy, food science and GMO, artisanal and slow food and drink, and fair trade.

F2Ti is produced by the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in partnership with the SoFAB Institute. SoFAB documents and celebrates the food and drink of all cultures through exhibits, programming, and a range of media. SoFAB is home to several entities, among them the SoFAB Center for Food Law, Policy & Culture, the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, Museum of the American Cocktail, and SoFAB Media. F2Ti is the second exclusive trade show production of the Convention Center’s recently established Tradeshows and Conferences division. The Convention Center also owns and produces the International Disaster Conference and Expo, held each January.

The announcement took place at the Frederick Douglass Garden of the Sankofa Community Development Corporation. Chef Dominique Macquet of Dominique’s on Magazine prepared a locally-sourced lunch for those in attendance. The menu featured dishes created with herbs, vegetables and greens grown in Sankofa’s Frederick Douglass Garden: a freshly baked baguette sandwich with Tuscan ham, butter lettuce and herbed aioli; a red and golden beet salad with goat cheese sourced from Ryals Goat Dairy in Mississippi; mint infused iced tea; and strawberry-lemon trifle.

Chef Macquet, who hails from the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and has been a prominent fixture in the New Orleans restaurant scene for 16 years, said, “I have cooked with ingredients from all over the globe, but the ingredients I have found locally are truly the best. It makes such a difference in the quality and taste of a dish when you use ingredients that are sourced within 30 to 50 miles. At least 85% of the dishes on my restaurant menu locally sourced, including herbs grown at my restaurant using hydroponic and aquaponic systems. The flavor of fresh herbs can change the whole meal.”

Kevin Morgan-Rothschild of Verti Farms (Formerly A.M.PS.) demonstrated a desktop aquaponic that runs on rainwater and is used to grow the herbs used in Chef Macquet’s restaurant, Dominique’s on Magazine.

Chef Macquet also demonstrated a hydroponic tower which runs on rainwater and is used to grow herbs used in his restaurant. Dominique’s is the fourth restaurant in the United States to utilize an on-site hydroponic tower.

For information on exhibiting, please contact F2ti Conference Director Jimmy Mouton at 504-582-3000 or jmouton@mccno.com.