Aga Foodservice Equipment (AFE) successfully exhibited products from all four of its major brands at 2006's final U.S. tradeshow, the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show in New York City, on November 12 through 14. This year's New York Show attracted some 45,000 attendees and over 1,500 exhibitors.

Aga Booth Layout

    AFE executives and managers were able to meet with current and potential customers who came to the booth to learn more about the benefits of products from Victory Refrigeration, Stellar Steam, Infinity Fryers and the newest member of the Aga Foodservice family, Eloma combi ovens.

    "The show was very well attended, which helped us to reach out with our common brand value message: category-leading energy and utility efficiency, technical innovation and differentiation, and reliability backed by two-year warranties," commented Mark Whalen, president of Aga Foodservice Equipment and Victory Refrigeration.

    Products displayed by AFE companies included Victory's VBC-75 blast chiller, pizza table, two-door Value Series refrigerator, one-door dual-temp refrigerator and sandwich table. Infinity Fryers' display featured its high-output, ENERGY STAR®-certified models, along with presentations on filtering and energy efficiency. Equipment from Stellar Steam and Eloma were also on display, drawing daily crowds eager to learn more about their boilerless technology and view cooking demonstrations conducted by AFE corporate chefs Mike Nicholson and Vincent van Delft with Eloma combi ovens.

    "My sense of this year's New York Show, having attended the event for over 30 years, was that the traffic volume and quality equaled its most popular years, the 1980s and early '90s," Whalen related. "Thanks to the efforts of our local rep, Tri-State Marketing, every influential New York-area design consultant toured our booth. We also met with most regional dealers and several national multi-unit customers. All were very impressed with the Eloma live cooking demonstrations and the chilling abilities of the VBC-75 blast chiller. We expect the goodly number of qualified leads we received to result in a positive return on our New York Show investment. This show also enabled us to confirm that live cooking demonstrations and communicating our common brand value proposition will set the stage for success in next year's NRA and NAFEM Shows."