US Foods Appoints Executive To Oversee Tech Vision, Strategy

John Tonnison will come on board to Rosemont, Illinois-based US Foods Holding Corp. as the firm’s new executive vice president, chief information and digital officer effective July 12, according to an announcement. Tonnison will report to Pietro Satriano, who is the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer.

In his new role, Tonnison will supervise the firm’s technology vision and strategy in addition to every information technology function. Prior to his nearly two-decade tenure at Tech Data, Tonnison served as Technology Solutions Network’s vice president and chief technology officer.

“JT joins the executive team with more than 30 years of extensive experience leveraging technology to foster innovation, improve operational efficiencies and deliver exceptional service to customers,” Satriano said in the announcement. “He will be instrumental in driving our information technology vision forward as we deliver on our commitment to bring US Foods customers best-in-class digital commerce solutions.”

US Foods is a food company and food service distributor that teams with roughly 300,000 eateries and food service operators.

Last August, US Foods revealed an effort to help restaurant owners roll out ghost kitchens.

With the US Foods Ghost Kitchens program, clients can access resources to simplify the workflow of getting a ghost kitchen started. Included is technology to select menu choices, a line-by-line guide to arriving at decisions, promotions assistance and consultations with US Foods team members.

Ghost kitchens, which are also known as dark or virtual kitchens, are professional food preparation and cooking facilities put into place to make delivery-only meals. The concept has emerged to capitalize on the increasing popularity of takeout orders in the face of the pandemic.

“The Ghost Kitchens program was developed in response to growing interest among our customers, but we’ve also been tracking the trend, and ghost kitchens are projected to reach a $1 trillion global market by 2030, making them an attractive concept for operators even after dine-in restrictions are lifted,” Jim Osborne, senior vice president of customer strategy and innovation at US Foods, said in an announcement last August.