Seventeen seats at Porzana, and a table that kept coming back to the same gap: the consumer keeps moving, and the industry is not built to turn that quickly.
The ninth Off The Record dinner was held on November 10, 2026, at Porzana, an Argentinian restaurant in Minneapolis, in partnership with IFMA, The Food Away from Home Association. Operators, manufacturers and suppliers shared plates family style around one long table. The conversation found its thread early and stayed on it all evening.
Value has become a question of effort
The table kept returning to how far the meaning of value has moved. When Americans talk about getting their money’s worth now, they mean food that is easy and convenient, with low price and health further down the list. The consumer is measuring effort saved.
For a room that covered the full away-from-home chain, that changes a lot. Operators are being judged on how little the guest has to do. Manufacturers are being judged on how much work their products take off the operator’s line. A cheaper item that adds friction is a weaker offer than it used to be.
AI, held honestly
The AI conversation was candid. There was real excitement about where the technology is going and real concern about what it will do to how this industry works. Almost everyone at the table felt both. Nobody tried to resolve that over dinner. The table treated it as a tension to sit with, and it was one of the more honest exchanges of the night.
Around the table
- Matt Renneberg, Hilton
- Evan Carlson, Bongards
- Angela Dodd, Females in Food
- Susie Moschkau, Crisp & Green
- Steve Gokey, General Mills
- Erin Reynolds, CH Guenther
- Lauren McNamara, SunOpta
- Sarah Stewart-Schultze, Dairy Queen
- Lynn Egner, Hormel
- Erin Denham, JT Mega
- Lisa Helmstetter, Coca-Cola
- Sara Brohl, CJ Schwan’s Foodservice
- Ben Rode, TR Toppers
Thank you to Mike Schwartz and Morgan Reardon at IFMA for building this evening with us. The dinner was hosted by Gitit Greenberg and Sam Newman of Tastewise.
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