The Focus On Food Team
 Ron Marks
Founder and President
Executive culinary positions with a variety of national and international concepts highlight Focus On Food founder and president Ron Marks' 32 years of experience in the foodservice industry. Formally trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Marks began his career in New York City with the startup of a dozen different World Trade Center restaurants, working under acclaimed chef Jacques Pepin and legendary restaurateur Joe Baum. He later became executive chef of the Playboy Club of New York.
Upon relocating to the West Coast, Marks held positions as opening executive chef of the Harbor Restaurant in Santa Barbara and regional chef for the Northern California division of Specialty Restaurant Corporation. At Specialty he began developing menus for chain restaurant application - an expertise he continued to apply as corporate executive chef with Warner Leisure (a restaurant subsidiary of Warner Communications) and Director of Food Operations for General Leisure, a multi-concept Texas based regional chain.
In 1986 Ron Marks joined Applebee's - a fledgling 14-unit franchised casual dining chain concentrated in and around Atlanta, Georgia. Ron's menu/marketing leadership and product development vision enabled the organization to become the world's largest casual dining chain, with over 1,100 restaurants in six countries, and sales approaching $2 billion at that time. During his 12 year tenure as Senior Vice President of Research and Development, Marks gained extensive experience in consumer driven market research, which he applied to the development of food, menu and restaurant branding. Ron attended graduate courses in R&D process management at Harvard University's Keller School of Business Management during this time.
In April of 1998, Ron founded Ron Marks Associates Inc., consultants to the foodservice industry, working with both chain operators and national and international food manufacturers in strategic menu/marketing and targeted product development. Four years later his career would culminate in the launch of Focus On Food, the Southeast's premier market research facility for new menu and food product development.
An accomplished speaker, Marks has addressed audiences at COEX, The Women's Foodservice Forum, the From Mind to Menu conference, Applebee's franchise conventions and The Research Chef's Association and the Marketing Research Association.
Ron is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his accomplishments in the foodservice industry, including the 1997 From Mind to Menu Visionary award and the 1992 Applebee's Founders' Award for his significant contributions to the Applebee's concept. Marks was also named a "Rising Star in the Industry" by Restaurants and Institutions magazine in 1998.
|
