For Mark Whalen, president of Aga Foodservice Equipment and its Victory Refrigeration component, the 2007 National Restaurant Association Show will be a time to reinforce AFE's three-pronged value proposition that, he says, continues to distinguish the company in an increasingly crowded market.

    "We're going to do a lot of educating about our companies' leadership in energy efficiency, because this message is applicable to all our brands," Whalen related. "We'll reinforce our points of technical and feature differentiation, and stress our reliability, which is demonstrated by the standard two-year parts-and-labor warranty we offer on everything we sell."

    Of those three differentiators, the energy efficient performance of the equipment produced by AFE companies Victory Refrigeration, Infinity Fryers, Eloma combi ovens and Stellar Steam will likely be most obvious. In its product literature and booth display, AFE will highlight the fact that it recently won its second consecutive ENERGY STAR® Manufacturer Partner of the Year Award from the Dept. of Energy and EPA, which honor firms for their production and marketing of the most energy-efficient equipment.

    In terms of traffic at the AFE booth during the show, Whalen said he expects to see a wide variety of visitors. "There's a blend of people who come to NRA. Several chains and a lot of our bigger dealers attend the show. A lot of our reps come through, too, so it's a chance for us to do some rep training. Consultants can come and kick the tires on our Eloma combis and Victory blast chillers and learn what's going on with those companies."

    Determining the successfulness of these visits, however, will be difficult. The number of solid sales leads generated at the show is the most obvious metric with which to judge success. Ultimately, though, AFE's most important objectives will be much harder to measure, Whalen said.

    "We have equipment that appeals to a broad spectrum of the industry. Our goal is to have people come to look at our products, receive our message and understand the quality of what we make and our value proposition," he stated.

    The 2007 NRA Show is scheduled for May 19th through 22nd at McCormick Place in Chicago. AFE's booth at the show is #2441.