A COLLECTION OF EXPERTISE

Our founder, Eric, was born with a plastic spoon in his mouth. His step-father was a pioneer in the plastics industry and was the first manufacturer and supplier of foodservice disposables (spoons, forks, knives, straws) to the restaurant and hospitality industries. After growing up in his family business, Eric went on to co-found a number of foodservice and retail packaging manufacturers that sold to Fortune 500 companies.

Eric left the corporate world in the early 1990s and founded Packaging Resources. Today, Packaging Resources is a leading packaging design, sourcing, and operational consultant servicing the foodservice, agriculture, retail, club store, industrial, pharmaceutical, and e-commerce industries.

Having grown up in the foodservice disposable and restaurant supply industries, Eric learned a lot about restaurants and foodservice operations. In the late 1990s, Eric entered the restaurant business himself and also added US Restaurant Consultants to his portfolio of consulting operations. Today, US Restaurants Consultants helps foodservice operators of all sizes with everything from start-ups, M & A, concept development, design, marketing, packaging, location finding, lease negotiations, menu development, operations, and more.

Since he was a young boy,  Eric has always had an interest in and affinity for design. His mother was a part-time interior designer and his family built two spectacular architectural homes. Eric was there every step of the way in his teens and developed a passion for architecture, interior design, and construction. He learned from the best of the best. 

He met his wife at one of his restaurants. She was an interior designer and stager in Calgary, Canada following her long career at Disney/ABC Entertainment. She moved from Calgary to be with Eric and together they went on to build a design, staging, and construction company in the very affluent areas of Southern California.

Eight years ago, they decided to begin the process of following their two adult children to Idaho to be with family and their expected grandchildren.  Eric immediately began to replicate the same business model they had been operating for years in Southern California.  The Gem State Group is now an established design, build, construction management, and real estate consulting firm servicing the commercial and residential markets in Idaho. His wife owns Idaho Design Group.

As e-commerce began to boom, and the restaurant and retail industries began to transition to a delivery based model, Eric recognized the need to help restaurants, retailers, e-commerce companies, and delivery operators with consultative services that extended into logistics, packaging, contract negotiation, app development,  and more. With his background in packaging, restaurants and hospitality, and delivery operations, he added US Delivery Consultants to his growing group of providers. During Covid, the demand for expertise in this area exploded and today the delivery and e-commerce industries are robust. The demand for expertise is greater than ever.

Eric has been around food trucks his entire life.  In the 1960s and 70’s they were lunch trucks(roach coaches) that serviced manufacturing operations like Eric’s father's factory. As the restaurant industry expanded and transitioned into branded upscale food trucks, Eric saw a need to focus on this growing industry. Already well-established in the restaurant consulting industry, many of US Restaurant Consultants multi-unit clients were adding food trucks to their operations and independent entrepreneurs were entering this growing space. The need for concept development, truck design, regulatory help, and operational guidance moved Eric to found US Food Truck Consultants.  Today, this segment of the foodservice industry is expanding at an exponential pace.

That is how we got to where we are today.