What Will Drive the Food & Beverage Industry in 2025?
As we step into 2025, join CFBN and our hosts from Clayco for our first in-person event of the year! We will be exploring the key topics and trends poised to shape the food and beverage industry this year. A panel of industry experts will share their insights and outlooks for what promises to be an interesting 2025. Hot Topics discussed will include: Global Supply Chains, Health & Wellness Trends, Hiring & Labor Challenges, Digital Transformation, the Evolution of Sustainability, Future Food Policies, and more.
Following the panel, join us for a networking reception including amazing food and drink at the historic and beautifully renovated Jeweler’s Building. Enjoy cocktails, appetizers, and great industry connections while taking in the breathtaking downtown views.
AGENDA
5:00pm Doors Open/Registration
5:30pm Panel Discussion
6:15pm Q&A with Audience
6:30pm Networking Reception
7:30pm Events Ends
MICHAEL FASSNACHT
Chief Growth Officer & President, Chicagoland
CLAYCO
A seasoned business executive, marketing and strategic thought leader with more than 30 years of experience, Michael joined Clayco, one of America’s largest fully integrated design and engineering centric builder and real estate development firm across the commercial, industrial and residential sector as its first ever Chief Growth Officer and President of Chicagoland in early 2024. Prior to this role between, Michael led as President and CEO World Business Chicago, the City’s economic development organization, with more than 100 C-Suite executives from all over Chicagoland on its business centric board between 2020 and early 2024. The organization’s core focus is on growing its industry sectors by supporting the expansion of existing Chicagoland based companies and by attracting new corporate relocations to the region, all with a focus on equitable economic prosperity across all 77 neighborhoods and the region. Additionally, Michael worked alongside the Mayor’s Office as the Chief Marketing Officer to ensure that all marketing, branding, and business development activities for the city were aligned with Mayor Lightfoot’s and then Mayor Johnson’s economic growth plan focused on inclusive growth across Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods.
SCOTT RAHN
Sr. Vice President, Market Leader Consumer Products & Supply Chain
CLAYCO
Scott has been instrumental in growing Clayco’s industrial business unit to new heights from a $800 million of revenue in 2017 to over $3 billion today. In that time, he has been promoted multiple times to instrumental leadership roles—from senior project manager to project director to vice president to senior vice president. Currently, Scott is overseeing 30 large-scale projects for national industrial developers representing e-commerce giants and Fortune 500 clients, including NorthPoint Development, Prologis, and Scannell Properties and for companies such as Walmart, Amazon, Dollar General, Chewy, Home Depot, and many others. Scott also has introduced client relationships with the St. Louis Blues and Enterprise Center renovation work to Clayco, modeling a way to deliver Clayco’s integrated services to a new client. From West Coast to East Cost, Scott travels weekly to make sure projects are running smoothly and to introduce the team to potential new clients. Scott has also been instrumental in helping lead Clayco’s expansion into the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) market segment, providing engineered solutions for companies such as AppHarvest and Bright Farms.
DAVID HENKES
Senior Principal and Head of Strategic Partnerships
Technomic
Since joining the firm in 1996, David Henkes, Senior Principal, has managed a wide variety of proprietary and multi-client engagements, both domestic and global. As a senior member of the firm, his specific responsibilities include client development, engagement oversight, and industry relations. His range of experience is wide and includes market and strategic planning, customer satisfaction benchmarking, opportunity analyses, acquisition due diligence evaluations, new product evaluation and concept testing, usage/attitude analyses, and distribution systems analyses. He also oversees the firm's Beverage Practice.
Dave is a well-known commentator on the food and beverage industry and has appeared on regularly on Bloomberg TV, Thompson Reuters, CNBC,Fox Business, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, ABC and First Business, among others. He has been cited by a wide variety of sources, including The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, Time Magazine, Crain's Chicago Business, Reuter's and Associated Press syndicated articles, as well as industry trade magazines such as Restaurant Business, Nation's Restaurant News, Beverage Industry Magazine, and others.
(Moderator)
ALAN REED
Executive Director
The Chicagoland Food & Beverage Network
Alan Reed is the Executive Director of the Chicagoland Food & Beverage Network, a startup, nonprofit organization that brings industry players together, provides a forum for collaboration and support, and better connects the 4,500 companies in the industry across Chicagoland to drive innovation and growth in the region. The group leverages the power of the food & beverage industry in Chicagoland to grow the industry, and the local economy.
Prior to this new role, Alan was Executive Vice President, Strategy & Innovation at Dairy Management, Inc., and was responsible for creating and driving innovative strategies to grow dairy demand. Before joining DMI, Alan was a strategy consultant working with a variety of Fortune 100 companies. Alan has a degree in Telecommunications from Indiana University, an MBA in Management & Strategy from Northwestern University, where he has taught innovation and new product development, and a certificate in Non-Profit Management from the University of Notre Dame.
More Speakers to be Announced
This event is in partnership with:
