12 foodservices heroes who served customers, communities and colleagues during the coronavirus pandemic

Desperate times call for…heroic measures. When the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States in March, forcing shutdowns, curtailments and general upheavals across all onsite dining segments, the industry responded not by folding its tents but by stepping up and fulfilling the mission of making sure customers—at least the ones still around—were served.

It was—and is—a time of heroes, and while Food Management can’t recognize every member of the onsite dining community who responded to the crisis with courage, commitment and determination, we can highlight some representative samples.

In May, we asked the industry to submit nominations of individuals who they felt deserved recognition as “foodservice heroes.” We were flooded with hundreds of responses from all sectors.

From all those nominations, we pulled a dozen who were featured in FM’s July/August print issue. Due to space limitations, we couldn’t print their full stories in that editorial package, so here are the extended narratives from those nominations. We will be featuring other nominees in the coming weeks by market segment with college/university and K-12 heroes the week of July 27, hospital and business/industry heroes the week of August 3 and senior dining heroes the week of August 10, with a full wrap-up later that week.