2025 Gold & Silver Plate Celebration to include Legends Award

IFMA The Food Away from Home Association welcomes National Restaurant Association’s Legends Award back to the ceremony

CHICAGO, Feb. 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — IFMA The Food Away from Home Association today announced a renewed partnership with the National Restaurant Association (NRA) to present the National Restaurant Association’s Legends Award at the Gold & Silver Plate Awards Celebration.

Considered the foodservice industry’s most prestigious honor since its creation in 1954, the Gold & Silver Plate Awards celebrate operators for outstanding achievement. Past winners include many legends of the industry, including Ruth Fertel; J. Willard Marriott, Sr.; Danny Meyer; Julia Stewart; Regynald Washington, Wolfgang Puck, Jessica Shelly, and Lance Trenary.

For the first time since the pandemic, the NRA Legends Award will return to the Gold and Silver Plate Awards Ceremony, which will take place on Saturday, May 17 in Chicago. The NRA Legends Award will honor an individual who has left an indelible and unique mark on the foodservice industry and on society.

“I am delighted to see this partnership renewed between our two prestigious food industry associations,” said Phil Kafarakis, President and CEO of IFMA The Food Away from Home Association. “The combined recognition of industry greats by our two groups will add an extra level of excitement to our popular 70+-year old event and further solidify it as a cornerstone of NRA Show week in Chicago.”

“The Gold and Silver Plate Awards Ceremony is a highly anticipated event for many of our members during National Restaurant Association Show week,” said Michelle Korsmo, President & CEO of the National Restaurant Association. “We are excited to play a part in it again through our Legends Award. Partnering with IFMA The Food Away from Home Association is a natural extension of both organizations’ commitment to spotlighting excellence in foodservice operations across the nation.”

The Gold & Silver Plate Awards will be presented on the evening of Saturday, May 17, 2025, in Chicago’s historic Union Station. The event features a welcome reception, award presentation, gourmet meal, and an exciting after-party. Attendees include leaders from every operator segment, manufacturers, and industry partners, along with members of the Gold and Silver Plate Society who have won the award in past years.

Along with Silver Plate winners, the recipient of the esteemed Gold Plate Award will be unveiled at the Celebration. The event is open to all industry professionals.

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For more information, please visit ifmaworld.com

About IFMA The Food Away from Home Association
IFMA The Food Away from Home Association is a trade association founded in 1952. The organization empowers, nurtures, and connects an inclusive and diverse $1.5 trillion food-away-from-home ecosystem of manufacturers, distributors, operators, and others. By sharing insights, fostering best practices, and developing networking and educational opportunities through events, IFMA The Food Away from Home Association informs and instructs its members, and motivates change to improve both individual organizations and the food-away-from-home industry at large. For more information, visit ifmaworld.com.

About the National Restaurant Association
Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises more than 1 million restaurant and foodservice outlets and a workforce of 15.7 million employees. Together with 52 State Associations, we are a network of professional organizations dedicated to serving every restaurant through advocacy, education, and food safety. We sponsor the industry’s largest trade show (National Restaurant Association Show); leading food safety training and certification program (ServSafe); unique career-building high school program (the NRAEF’s ProStart). For more information, visit Restaurant.org and find @WeRRestaurants on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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SOURCE IFMA The Food Away from Home Association