1:00 pm - 6:00 pm 

Registration & Check-In

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Sales & Marketing Learning Exchanges – pre-registration
required.
Formerly IFDA Share Groups, IFDA will hold small, peer-driven discussions on the issues important to your business and a valuable chance to discuss shared experiences, common challenges, and forward-looking solutions.  Learning Exchanges are for IFDA distributor members only and space is limited.  

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm 

Opening Reception
Surf’s up! Mix and mingle with your fellow attendees in breezy, coastal style! Join us in soaking up some fun while enjoying the taste and flavors of the Florida coast with your peers.

8:00 am – 9:00 am

Breakfast Available/Registration Open

9:00 am – 9:15 am 

Welcome & Opening with Mark Allen, President and CEO, IFDA and Julien Leblanc
What is different this year and how do you maximize your SMart experience?

9:15 am – 10:15 am

 

Show Me the Money (Supply)
Soft landing?  Something harder?  Whither inflation?  This presentation will supply in-depth analysis of the major factors shaping economic outcomes, including central bank policymaking, worker attitudes, business confidence, and geopolitics.  It will then turn toward a forecast for the year to come, highlighting the major risks that economic stakeholders will likely encounter.

10:30 am – 11:15 am







 

Consumer Insights & Trends in Food
Take a deep dive into the most important data in foodservice. This session will look at current menu movers and shakers as well as the outlook for future consumer trends.

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Networking Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm 

Group Communication Exercise 
A hands on workshop on how groups brainstorm and make decisions.

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm 

Leveraging Your Salesforce in an E-Commerce World 
The digitalization of the economy has profoundly impacted traditional sales practices, creating new competitive platforms while challenging long-standing truisms about relationship-building. What is the role of your salesforce in an era where walking into a restaurant is no longer the main point of contact? How can you leverage their talents with today's technology to build new business streams? This panel will give you timely tips for riding the digital currents to future success. 
Panelists:
Kevin Baum, Product Manager - Digital Commerce, Dot Foods, Inc.
Jennifer Mitchell, Territory Sales Manager, Martin Brothers Distributing Co., Inc.
Bowie Cheung, Co-founder & CEO, Pepper

3:00 pm – 3:15 pm 

Break

3:15 pm – 3:45 pm 

Solving the Workforce Conundrum 
Workforce challenges have become commonplace across the foodservice industry, but with challenges come opportunities. This session will expore how distributors can think outside the box to bring value to labor-strapped partners.
 

3:45 pm - 4:00 pm

Break

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Innovation – “Uncrapify Your Future!”
Make the process of coming up with new ideas, solving problems, exploiting opportunities, and surviving massive (and sometimes unexpected) disruption easier and more rewarding than you ever thought possible.

5:00 pm - 5:15 pm

Wrap up and adjourn

5:30 pm- 6:30 pm

Evening Reception
Let’s Par-Tee! Tee up with your colleagues and enjoy an evening of games, hors d'oeuvres, and cocktails. Pepper has generously sponsored this event.

8:00 am – 9:00 am 

Breakfast Available  

9:00 am – 9:15 am

Welcome & Recap of Day One with Julien Leblanc

9:15 am - 10:30 am

Choosing Competent Courage
We all know the importance of honest communication, problem resolution, innovative efforts, and other learning-oriented behaviors. What we’re often less clear about is how scary and difficult these behaviors are seen to be, how infrequently they occur, and what to do about this state of affairs for ourselves and others. In this interactive session, Professor Detert will walk us through several opportunities for courageous action and introduce specific tools and tactics for use before, during, and after the kinds of everyday defining moments that make or break leaders.

10:30 am - 11:30 am

Delivering a World-Class Customer Experience – Lessons From The Mouse
Customers have more choices than ever, with the result that most products and services are increasingly seen as commodities. So, in today’s market, what can an organization do to stand out from the crowd? Differentiating your service is the key to attracting and retaining customers – while driving bottom line results.
 
Based on his 20-years with Walt Disney World, Dennis Snow will provide a “how-to” program for delivering outstanding customer experiences. This program will provide you with strategic tools that can be used to raise the bar of service throughout your organization, resulting in “walk-through-fire” customer loyalty.

11:30 am - 11:45 am

Wrap Up and Next Steps You have the right industry collaborators to help you thrive. Bring it all together with these actionable takeaways for mapping out your post-SMart strategy. Sales professional Julien Leblanc will lead a closing group discussion on tactical techniques for leveraging the takeaways of the conference for you to interpret and apply to your specific business.  

11:45 am

Adjourn