Next time you open your phone, scroll a feed, or click into one of the dozens of industry newsletters sitting in your inbox, try asking yourself one question.

Am I following a publication, or am I following a person?

Does that sound like a small distinction? It might be the most important question anyone in foodservice and hospitality can ask about where they get their information, their advice, and their sense of where things are going.

A publication is a thing. It has a masthead, a content calendar, and a revenue target. A person has a heartbeat. A person has skin in the game. A person has stood in a little office under the stairs at 11 p.m. wondering if the numbers are going to work this month.

So does the source you trust know what that feels like? Have they lived it, or have they only read about it?

And where does the advice worth trusting actually come from? From the outside looking in? Or from the people who put the industry first, the people first, the food first, and the profits second?

Trust in this business doesn't come from volume. It doesn't come from who posts the most, who shouts the loudest, or who has the biggest logo sitting at the top of the page. So where does it come from?

Does it come from being right once, or from showing up every single time?

Does it come from telling you what you want to hear, or from telling you what you need to hear when nobody else will say it?

Does it come from someone who picks up the phone on a Sunday night when your world is falling apart and there's nothing in it for them?

Here's a good test. Who would you actually call before making a decision that mattered to your business? Is it a publication? Or is it a person?

Look at what gets published and ask a few honest questions.

Does the coverage only celebrate the biggest and most successful brands, the ones with the PR teams and the seed funding rounds, while everyone else gets ignored?

Does it highlight what people are struggling with in order to help them, or in order to sell them a solution to a problem that was never their fault in the first place?

Is that right?

Because what is this industry actually built on? A ton of underdogs. It always has been. The couple who mortgaged their house to open a 40 seat cafe. The chef who worked fifteen years of double shifts to finally put their own name on a menu. The immigrant family whose restaurant became the anchor of a small town's main street.

Do those people need to be talked down to, farmed for social clicks, or scared into buying something they don't need? Or do they need to be lifted up?

We talk a lot in foodservice about what's lacking. Labour. Margin. Food costs. Foot traffic. Predictability. All real. All serious.

But what if the thing this industry lacks most is love?

I know how that sounds in a business that prides itself on being hard. So let me put it in practical terms. What does love look like here? It looks like pulling others up instead of stepping over them. It looks like sharing what you know instead of guarding it. It looks like celebrating the new media company down the street instead of hoping it fails so it never becomes a problem for you. It looks like media that tells the whole story of this industry, the wins and the struggles, without exploiting either one.

Hospitality is the business of caring for people. It's right there in the word. So why would we accept an industry culture, and coverage, that doesn't care for its own?

Trust on its own isn't the whole thing, is it? Plenty of people can tell you accurately what already happened. So who is telling you what happens next?

Does the voice you follow report the news, or does it point at where this industry is heading before it gets there? Does it prepare you for the shift, or explain the shift to you six months after you already felt it in your numbers?

Is that person building something for the future of this industry, or just describing its present?

Because what does this industry actually need more of? People with a real vision for what it could become, and the nerve to go build it?

I've said publicly that we're going to build the most fair and trusted B2B media brand in the Canadian foodservice and hospitality industry with our amazing team. Does that sound ambitious? It is. Am I crazy for saying it out loud? Maybe.

But is it crazier to say it than to sit quietly and never attempt it?

What I know about myself is this. I'm not a publication. I'm not a full media company yet, not in the way people usually mean it. I'm a guy from a small town years ago, who believes this industry saved his life. That isn't a marketing line. This industry gave me purpose, a career, a community, and an identity. Everything we build now with Ashton Media is my way of giving back to the thing that gave me everything.

Did anyone make me do this? No. I could have taken everything this industry taught me and gone anywhere with it. I could have been a marketer, an artist, a sales leader, a chef, even a restaurant owner. I could have picked any of those doors. Instead I chose to build my entire career around helping this industry and the people inside it move forward.

Is that crazy? Some would say so. But is it the kind of crazy this industry needs more of?

So here's the part I'd hand back to you, whether you're an owner, an operator, a chef, a supplier, or an executive at a large brand.

Before you trust a source, can you find the person behind it?

Has that person actually lived in this industry, or only studied it from the outside?

Would they show up when there's nothing to sell you?

Do they cover the struggling owner with the same respect they give the successful one?

Do they tell you only what already happened, or do they tell you what's coming?

Does their content make you feel capable of success, or does it make you feel afraid? Fear and negativity sell subscriptions. Do they build businesses, brands, or the people?

And the simplest question of all: if that person's business disappeared tomorrow, would they still care about this industry?

For some, is the answer no? This industry was just the market they happened to land in. For others, is the answer yes without hesitation, because the industry was home long before it was a business?

Which of those are worth following?

Does this industry deserve media that loves it back? Does it deserve voices that lift it up instead of feeding off it? Does it deserve people who see the underdog and think, how do I help, instead of, how do I monetize?

That's the standard I'm trying to hold myself to with our team at Ashton Media, and I'm saying it publicly so you can hold me to it.

So the next time you're scrolling, reading, or listening to a podcast, ask the question one more time.

Are you following a publication, or are you following a person?

I'll leave that answer to you.

Let's celebrate the industry we love with a trusted voice.

Canada’s Restaurant Guy.