Presenters

Nancy Kruse

One of the best-known and most respected foodservice analysts, Nancy Kruse is a recognized authority on industry issues and a widely quoted spokesperson on food and menu trends.

In 1997 Nancy founded The Kruse Company, based in Atlanta and dedicated to assessing trends and directions in food, menu and restaurant concepts. She authors The Kruse Report, a column devoted to what's happening on the menu that appears bi-monthly in Nation's Restaurant News; in addition, she is Program Director of NRN's annual Menu Trends and Directions conference. In demand as a speaker, she has addressed national and state restaurant associations, as well as major restaurant and supermarket organizations, food manufacturers and distributors and promotion boards in the US and abroad.

Prior to founding her own company, Nancy served as Executive Vice President for Technomic, Inc., where she conducted a wide range of consulting assignments for Fortune 500 food and restaurant companies. Nancy has served on the boards of the National Frozen Foods Association and the Foodservice Innovation Network, and she is also an active member of the Women's Foodservice Forum, International Foodservice Editorial Council, and Les Dames d'Escoffier International.

She earned a Master of Arts degree from the Film School of Northwestern University and was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in Russian Literature at the University of Wisconsin. More recently she completed coursework at The Culinary Institute of America, where she has served as a visiting instructor. In December 2008, she was honored to deliver one of the prestigious Zagat series of lectures at the Hyde Park campus of the CIA; fellow lecturers included industry luminaries Danny Meyer and chef Daniel Boulud.