CHICAGO, November 12, 2025 —The Presidents Conference marked its 63rd anniversary this year, but don’t break out the porch rockers and bingo cards just yet. The 2025 gathering of senior food-away-from-home executives showed it still delivers plenty of fresh food for thought, including these jaw-dropping revelations.
Mind-reading is here
A recurring topic of the conference was the challenge of turning the reams of data available to today’s food-away-from-home executives into actionable insights. But few attendees seemed aware that collected information is already being used in other fields literally to read minds and accurately predict what someone is about to do.
"This is all very science-fictionesque, but it’s happening today,” said Amy Beck, Director of Food & Beverage for Instagram and Facebook parent Meta.
In a keynote address, she first aired a black-and-white picture that had been shown to a test participant. She then showed a re-creation formed by using AI to read and interpret the brain waves emitted by the original picture’s viewer. The images were almost identical.
Already, she explained, brain waves have been captured and studied in sufficient volume to correlate the various types to the thoughts arising in the mind of the thinker. From there, it’s a short jump to determining what a person is thinking by reading their brain signals, and a similarly short bridge to predicting their reaction to a stimulus by capturing and analyzing the emitted brain waves.
“Isn’t that Julia Stewart?”
Not much has been seen or heard from the 2005 Silver Plate winner since she stepped down as CEO of what’s now Dine Brands Global, the parent of Applebee’s and IHOP. Yet there she was on the main stage of Presidents Conference, recounting the self-development strategy that took her from a server’s job at an IHOP to the CEO’s office and one of the most prominent leadership positions in the restaurant business.
It boiled down to two words: Clarity and purpose.
Stewart also explained how the lack of self-care she witnessed among her peers has led her to start an app-based wellness program called Alurx. She is now serving the start-up as CEO.
Mexico, not China, is the economic tiger to watch
Renowned economist and former White House advisor Pippa Malmgren opened the conference with a decidedly contrarian and positive view of America’s position in the global financial scene. The real head-spinning moment may well have been her contention that the U.S. should worry less about China and focus more on strengthening economic relations with Mexico.
“Mexico has emerged as the new China,” Malmgren contended. “This is very dramatic for the world economy, and particularly for the U.S.”
Ultra-processed foods need to be de-villainized
If one of the big food manufacturers in attendance had aired a defense of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), the strongest audience reaction might have been a yawn. Where’s the big surprise in that?
But the strongest case against the demonization of UPFs came from Jessica Shelly, the 2023 Gold Plate winner who serves as Director of Student Dining Services for Cincinnati Public Schools. She’s been a zealous advocate for doing more scratch cooking in schools and otherwise improving the wholesomeness of what’s served to K-12 students.
So more than a few listeners perked up when Shelly was asked during a breakout session for her opinion on government efforts to define and regulate the use of UPFs in schools.
“Ultra-processed food is not necessarily bad,” Shelly said. She cited a pizza that’s topped with fresh, high-quality cheese, a sauce made from organic tomatoes, and a whole-grain crust. “It’s delicious and very wholesome,” she said, “but it’s by definition ultra-processed.”
The reality, she continued, is that not all UPFs should be tagged as must-avoids.
Menu globalization is a domestic mega-force
About 70% of food-away-from-home sales in the U.S. are generated by the cuisines of other nations, according to Heather Bradshaw, Vice President of North American Marketing for the distributor Gordon Food Service. And, she added, “That’s not going to go away.”
That menu globalization is already signaling a need for adjustments in the supply chain, continued Bradshaw, who took part in a panel discussion about women playing a more influential role in distribution. In the instance of Gordon, “We need more Spanish-speaking sales representatives,” she said by way of example.
The 2025 Presidents Conference is an annual top-to-top conference for executives in the food-away-from-home business. It has been presented for 63 years by IFMA The Food Away from Home Association.
More information is available here.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.
Cover image courtesy: Closed Loop Project