The inside story of how Gold and Silver Plate winners are chosen

I served on the jury that selects the Gold and Silver Plate award winners for 27 years. For several of those years, a prominent chain executive would call me after the honorees were announced to angrily demand an explanation of why his nominee wasn’t a winner. 

He’d had his people fill out the nomination forms, highlighting his choice’s stellar success and what a good-hearted person he was. Yet he had yet to win a Plate. “What gives?” the caller would bark. “He's won every other industry award." And I would patiently explain that what happens in the jury room—and those developments can be truly extraordinary—never goes beyond it.  

Now, after almost three decades of choosing the winners, I’ll no longer be a voting jury member. As an employee of IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, I can participate in the discussions but not in the voting. It’s one of the reasons the awards have remained so prestigious; the selections are made solely by third parties, a mix of past winners, journalists, and industry VIPs.  

The association keeps no finger on the scale, unlike most of the other major award programs. I know because I’ve participated in virtually all of them. 

My new status clears the way for a partial revelation of what happens in the jury room. But don’t expect a motherlode of insider gossip about any nominee. The imperative to keep the deliberations secret still stands. And part of the jury’s role is to cut through the gossip and hype to judge each nominee on their true merits. Do they deserve recognition as the very best operator within their respective industry segment? 

For starters, my irate caller was guilty of a common misconception about the criteria used. The competition is neither a popularity contest nor a congeniality assessment. It’s a nice plus if a nominee’s passion is rescuing baby seals in their spare time or volunteering every year for the dunk tank at their church’s annual carnival. But that’s not going to win them a Silver Plate.  

Before the Silver Plate deliberations begin, the jurists review the written judging criteria . They can be boiled down to how a candidate stacks up in terms of business acumen, demonstrated leadership, a commitment to employees, and their giveback to the industry and their communities.  

A second set of criteria is reviewed before the secret balloting for the Gold Plate winner commences. Those factors go a little deeper, addressing such key traits as operational know-how, communication skills, and how readily they’ve passed on their wisdom to the next generation of leaders. 

The finalists for the Gold Plate, the best-of-the-best award, are the winners of a Silver Plate, recognized as the best operator within one of nine specific industry segments . Those sector honorees are chosen via a secret ballot by the whole voting jury after one member leads a discussion of each top candidate (by the time of the jury meeting, the field within each segment has been narrowed to three to five contenders by the Gold & Silver Plate Society, the alumni group for all past winners.) 

The discussions can be pointedly frank. The leaders of the segment discussions, as appointed by the jury chairperson, are often the prior year’s winner of the sectors’ Silver Plate. Routinely, as the give-and-take gets rolling, that past winner will remark that they don’t how they managed to win given the intense scrutiny each candidate gets. 

It’s not uncommon for an industry darling to be ruled out because of personal recollections about the individual from an operator or journalist in the room. Once, the CEO of a major operation looked like a shoo-in. But the discussion leader bluntly announced that he could not vote for that candidate, no how, no way, because of past dealings with the person. The Silver Plate went to someone else after the nay voter divulged the reason for his opposition. (Sorry, but I’m not going to reveal it here.) 

Conversely, many times a candidate who seemed to have the slimmest of chances is chosen because of what members of the jury knew about him or her.  

Yet the nomination forms are essential to a candidate’s chances. Not every jury member is familiar with every nominee. They rely on the form to give them at least a snapshot of the individual’s career and the context for following the discussion. 

Unfortunately, often the forms are woefully lacking in critical information. Like my angry second-guesser, nominators often wax on and on about what a great human being their candidate is, and what a big operation they oversee. I don’t think there’s ever been a nomination form in the healthcare category that didn’t remark how the candidate’s charge served food you’d never expect to be served in a hospital bed. 

Those distinctions are table stakes, given the caliber of the candidates under consideration. Many’s the time I was looking at a form for an executive I knew well but was far from captured on paper. 

Of particular importance for the two main chain-restaurant categories are same-store sales figures, the key indicators of a concept’s financial strength. Head-turning unit expansion doesn’t carry the same import.  

In any instance, historical comparisons are more insightful than absolute revenue or profit numbers.  

Nominators should also keep in mind that they’re dealing with a jury that’s difficult to fool. Assertions that a candidate has engineered a turnaround do no good when comparable sales are still negative or there’s no other quantified proof of a rebound. Nor will jury members believe someone was the architect of a business reversal when the candidate is still new to the job. 

Woe to the nominator who tries to lobby the jury members (which is why they’re not identified publicly). Since I received those nasty calls a few decades ago, the selection group is advised to rebuff any lobbying attempts and report those end runs to the association.  

If you think the process sounds rigorous, you’ve got it right. And that’s one of the reasons the Gold and Silver Plate awards remain the industry’s most prestigious honor after 71 years.  

The food-away-from-home business sports enough awards programs to keep the trophy business in good stead. But none can match the selectivity of the Gold and Silver Plates. 

NOTE: Nominations for the 2026 Silver Plate Awards will be accepted through September 30, 2025. See the form 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.