The Society for Foodservice Management (SFM) has officially become the Society for Hospitality and Foodservice Management (SFHM). At the association's national conference in Bonita Springs, Fla., the organization unveiled the new name, which corresponds with the growing job responsibilities of its members. With this new focus on hospitality, the group has added sessions on conference center management and audio visual services, which are increasingly being added to the job responsibilities of the association’s members.
Other highlights from day one at the conference include:
Ty Bennett, entrepreneur and author, talked about the qualities of leadership. Some key takeaways from Bennett’s presentation:
- We’re in the people business. As leaders, people won’t go along with you unless they get along with you.
- Influence is the No. 1 quality of a leader.
- People choose to follow you based on who you are and how you treat them
- Your influence has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with the people you lead
- Three ways to influence people: 1) Invest in people—this doesn’t mean money but doing little things like remembering their birthdays; 2) Focus on being interested rather than interesting—listen and build relationships; and 3) Practice the platinum rule—treat people the way they want to be treated. Leadership is individual, not in a group; people have different goals and are driven by different things
Chef Rick Moonen and Barton Seaver, director of the Healthy and Sustainable Food Program at the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard School of Public Health, spoke about food insecurity and sustainability. Some key takeaways from their presentation:
- A 70% increase in food production is needed by 2050 to meet the population’s needs. How do we feed a growing population without harming the environment?
- There needs to be more diversity in agriculture. For example, 95% of the land farmed in Iowa is for two crops: corn and soybeans.
- Nearly 40% of the world’s land has been cleared for agriculture.
- Eighty-five percent of the world’s fisheries have been fished at or beyond their capacity. We need to expand the variety of species that we eat from the ocean.
- It is a crime to take waste and throw it into the ocean. But no one thinks twice about wasting what we get from the ocean.
- We are only as healthy as the food we eat. Our food is only as healthy as the environment it is grown in. therefore we are only as healthy as our environment.