CHICAGO, November 6, 2025 - Imagine bringing an industry challenge to a brain trust of young up-and-comers who’ve been designated by their companies as the concerns’ likely future leaders. 

They’re encouraged to bring their fresh perspectives to a year-long search for new approaches to such vexing industry issues as how to turn the firehose of data now hitting food-away-from-home executives into actionable intelligence. 

And what about the place for robotics in an industry where a dose of human hospitality is essential? Does this generation that’s never known life without smartphones and internet access see a different place in the business for automatons and cyborgs?

Attendees of this year’s Presidents Conference saw proof such a forum of fresh thinkers not only exists but is generating the sort of head-turning solutions that were the hope of its organizer, the IFMA Food Away from Home Association Education Foundation. The fruits of the Next Gen Execs program were aired to foodservice industry leaders as a major component of the top-to-top event.

The 2025 “class” had been broken into four groups, each of which was given an industry issue to crack. Their mission was to spend a year studying the challenge and brainstorming new ways of addressing the matters. 

Their assigned topics included...

  • What roles AI and robotics should play in the food-away-from-home industry;
  • How to turn overwhelming volumes of data into smarter decision-making;
  • Strengthening collaboration between foodservice suppliers and distributors.
     

A fourth group was assigned the task of raising the visibility of the Next Gen program and its “graduates” by creating a badge that past and current participants can sport in professional settings. The badging system is virtual and allows participants to dress their LinkedIn accounts, resumes, professional signatures, and other designations or listings with the visual indication they’ve participated in the unique program for building leadership skills.

Each group took the stage to share the results of those year-long searches with the audience of senior-level industry leaders. 

Among the insights they aired:

  • The best defense against the “analysis paralysis” that can come from data overload is the development of a decision-making framework that can be applied to any “data lake.” In every instance, start with a clear statement of what the data interpreters are striving to achieve, then build dashboards that indicate what actions should be taken, not just what’s been measured—not a speedometer, but a gauge that says “speed up” or “slow down.”
  • Make sure every department is using the same evaluation criteria. Finance might be fixed on ROI, while Marketing might be looking for hints to future trends.
  • The best way to discover the capabilities of AI is to just get started. Determine where you’d like it to help, then see how it can be used to achieve those goals.
  • Relations between foodservice manufacturers and suppliers could be significantly strengthened by sharing real-time data and even planning initiatives together.

The session concluded with a rare presentation from Julia Stewart, the former CEO of IHOP and Applebee’s parent company. Drawing on her 40 years in the industry, Stewart advised the Next Gen participants to always be clear about where they and their organizations want to go, calling it their North Star.

The 2026 cohort of Next Gen Execs was introduced later in the program.

More information on the program 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.