At this special time of year, we take great joy in highlighting chefs and artisan purveyors who stand out for being singular at what they do. CW takes great pride in the knowledge that we do products better than anyone else. It is our mission, day in and out, to offer the best ingredients locally and globally to our esteemed customers.
Now, eight months into the pandemic, as the market is adjusting to restrictions, everyone has become more adept at learning how to live with it. Our customers are running their business to protect the public. Whether through food-to-go, delivery, meal, and baking kits to cook at home, outdoor dining, and perhaps a little bit of indoor dining as well, a definite uplift in the restaurant scene can be palpably felt.
Thankfully, this uptick and loosening of restrictions allows CW to start getting back out there and servicing our customers.
Restaurants that have adapted to the new environment have shown a tremendous amount of resiliency. The public is dying to go out. There’s a lot of pent up demand, and chefs that show that they respect the situation are getting rewarded by guests eager to dine at their venues. People are definitely eating out in direct support of their favorite restaurants as much as possible.
The silver lining to the immense challenges 2020 has presented is the unification of people. There has been a lot of support and unity across the board. CW employees have become closer, and their bond with our customers has become even stronger. The chef to chef community is the strongest it’s ever been. Everyone truly wants success for each other and because of this, I feel the industry has become a lot tighter.
Due to the more intimate nature of this holiday season, with smaller gatherings of friends and family, chefs will use their endless creativity to incorporate ways to enjoy seasonal dining at their venues or initiatives to savor chef-created cuisine at home. Keeping things simple with chef procured menus, utilizing the finest ingredients is often the most satisfying holiday experience irregardless of the limitations everyone is facing.
This is the time of year when we get the most excited about food. What makes the holidays special for me, is bringing family together to share a meal. It’s a time when people bring their favorite recipes and dishes or share favorite products from the farmers market or local purveyor. I personally look forward to roasted turkey at Thanksgiving. I actually really love turkey and my family only enjoys it once a year.
In the New Year, I feel strongly that we will finally experience a very welcomed calm after the storm. With the election over and the initial shock and burden of the
pandemic behind us, we will move into 2021 having learned a great deal from the pandemic and the civil unrest of our nation.
We will continue to be more aware and progress in terms of social equality. And if the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we must always be prepared for the unexpected and learn how to maneuver our businesses so that we can survive anything.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. We thank our customers and our CW family for your support and resilience during this difficult past year. I look forward to all of us bouncing back together in 2021!
Bruce Luong
CW Executive Vice President
West Coast and Canada
