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Quest Food Management CEO Michael McTaggart Named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2020 Midwest Award Finalist

LOMBARD, Ill. – August 28, 2020 – (Newswire.com)

​​Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) today announced that Michael McTaggart, Chief Executive Officer of Quest Food Management Services, Inc., was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2020 Midwest Award finalist. The Entrepreneur Of The Year program honors entrepreneurial business leaders whose ambitions deliver innovation, growth and prosperity as they build and sustain successful businesses that transform our world. Michael McTaggart was selected as one of 22 finalists from a competitive pool of nominations by a panel of independent judges.

Award winners will be announced through a special virtual event in early October and will join a lifelong community of esteemed Entrepreneur Of The Year alumni from around the world. This year, unstoppable entrepreneurs who have provided extraordinary support for their communities, employees and others during the COVID-19 crisis will also be recognized for their courage, resilience and ingenuity.

About McTaggart

Since 2001, Michael McTaggart has sought to grow and diversify Quest’s portfolio from, predominately, a private school foodservice provider into public schools, higher education locations, corporate dining facilities and healthcare operations. His determination, perseverance and honesty forged a path that broke the mold of food service management companies that operated without transparency, placed enormous financial risk on clients and operated under a model based on heat-and-serve, processed foods. 

McTaggart came to the table with a completely different approach. He pioneered offering intensely personal service to his partners in an industry filled with cookie-cutter approaches. One of McTaggart’s proven strategies for growing Quest’s business is an unrelenting passion for responding to student needs, participating in food committees with students to adjust programs at each individual client partner. He led the development of fresh, made-from-scratch food programs offering high-quality food made by trained culinarians, which was – and still largely is – unheard of in schools. He introduced financial models that are financially beneficial for both parties and based on a shared desire to consistently improve Quest’s programs. Proving that high-quality, well-run, foodservice programs could actually contribute to a school’s bottom line was transformative to Quest and to its partners.

McTaggart’s reputation for quality, transparency and trustworthiness has been the catalyst for sales growth of 250% over the past 10 years and an incredible customer retention rate of 99%. 

For McTaggart, nothing has presented more of a challenge than the current pandemic. “No other time in Quest’s history have we had to work so closely with our partners in order to continue to safely feed kids healthy, nutritious meals in a cost-effective way while balancing the needs of our employees.  This is unchartered territory for us and our partners – and we have provided valued solutions at times when there seemingly was no solution. We have actively been adding new business partners who are looking for creative, flexible and transparent partners who can adapt as we all adjust to feeding people in the COVID world.

“We have also been very focused on taking care of our employees during this time. We opened up our own food pantries, launched our own internal Quest Care Fund and spent every penny of a $5.2 million PPP loan on payroll to help take care of our folks. Our team members are what make our business and our clients successful and, while we have worked so hard to ensure we are safely and efficiently operating food service programs, we have worked even harder to help care for Quest’s employees over the past six months.”

About Quest Food Management Services

Quest Food Management Services is a family-owned food service management company, founded in 1985 and headquartered in Lombard, Illinois. Quest provides on-site food service for schools, universities and corporate offices throughout the Greater Chicagoland area with the goal of providing fresh, made-from-scratch food and intensely personal service. Quest serves 80 educational institutions in 110+ facilities across the Midwest, with annual revenue of roughly $69 million. The company was recently ranked #33 in Food Management Magazine’s Top 50 food management companies in the United States and has consistently been rated as one of the fastest-growing companies in its industry.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year

Entrepreneur Of The Year is one of the preeminent competitive award programs for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. The nominees are evaluated based on six criteria, including overcoming adversity; financial performance; societal impact and commitment to building a values-based company; innovation; and talent management. Since its launch, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries around the world.

Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards, to be announced in November during a virtual awards gala. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award in June 2021.​

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Quest Food Management CEO Michael McTaggart Named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2020 Midwest Award Finalist

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