Market Newsdesk

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Agile Frameworks®, the leading provider of collaborative, cloud-based corporate, field, lab and accreditation information management enabling Profitable Engineering® for the construction and engineering services sector, today announced Soil Consultants Engineering, LLC has selected its MetaField® solution to digitally manage project workflows for enhanced efficiency and improved client interactions.

Headquartered in Manassas, VA, Soil Consultants Engineering, LLC (SCE) offers a wide variety of services including geotechnical engineering, material observations and testing, and inspections. They serve commercial and residential clients in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

SCE was looking for a software solution that would help them meet the 24- or 48-hour turnaround times demanded by county jurisdictions. With their workflow combination of paper-based data collection and disparate software systems, SCE found it almost impossible to keep up with that kind of demand. While they were falling behind, their competitors were able to provide the information and meet the required response times.

SCE selected MetaField, a subscription-based, multi-tenant Software-as-a-Solution (SaaS) platform from Agile Frameworks that automates complex workflows for greater productivity and profitability. It provides a single application to manage project specifications, schedule, dispatch, test, collect and assemble results to accurately deliver information to clients in real time.

“The biggest selling point for us is having a solution where the inspector or technician is on site and they can log in their data. That data then goes to the lab and to the office where project managers can see everything in real time,” said Jenn Smith, chief executive officer, SCE.

“We aim to provide the best customer service in the industry. With MetaField we can send data to our clients immediately to get them information they need when they need it,” said Doug Smith, president, SCE. “Instead of waiting because I must go back to the office to type up the information and email it, I can send it right from the field. It is a great benefit for our clients, which is a big bonus for us.”

“Soil Consultants Engineering is a forward-thinking geotechnical firm that understands the value of adopting technology such as MetaField to automate field data collection and lab processes so they can deliver fast results to their clients,” said Bob Tuttle, Agile Frameworks CEO. “Customers such as SCE are well-positioned for competitive advantage via improved efficiency and client satisfaction.”

About Agile Frameworks

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., Agile Frameworks provides the only industry solution that fully integrates corporate, field, and lab information management activities in one platform across multiple engineering and construction disciplines. Agile offers capital project owners, construction, and engineering consulting firms the industry’s most impactful tools and automated processes to maximize efficiency, growth and profitability. 

Learn more about how Agile Frameworks connects the construction network and enables profitable engineering for more than 19,000 monthly subscribers via our cloud based-mobile solution at www.agileframeworks.com.

Media Contact:

Alan Littman
Agile Frameworks
952-995-2579
[email protected]

Northridge, California, Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via NewMediaWire — Innovative Payment Solutions, Inc. (“Innovative” or the “Company”) (OTCQB: IPSI), a US-based fintech company, focused on building 21st Century digital payment solutions, announced that a veteran business leader Robert G. Pedersen II has joined the Company’s Advisory Board. Mr. Pedersen has extensive experience in operations, marketing, and financial management.

“I have known Robert for many years.  It was a privilege to work with him on taking ZAGG public and helping to raise the requisite capital needed at that time. Robert is the best executing CEO I have ever seen. He has acute business development expertise,” said Innovative Payment Solutions, Inc. CEO William Corbett. “His talent, integrity, and experience should be invaluable to our company as we seek to accelerate our business development and continue to evolve. We are delighted to have Mr. Pedersen on our Advisory Board and I look forward to working closely with him again.”

Mr. Pedersen is currently an executive with privately held Cariloha, LLC (sister company of Del Sol), a retailer chain with more than 50 store locations worldwide. Prior to Cariloha, Mr. Pedersen was co-founder, CEO and Chairman of ZAGG, Inc, a mobile consumer electronics company. Under Mr. Pedersen’s leadership ZAGG flourished, and in less than 8 years the company went from a start-up, to generating over $265 million in annual revenue. Additionally, he took ZAGG from OTC markets to the Russell 2000 Index, and then up-listed on NASDAQ.

“The financial industry is going through a major overhaul and introducing new technologies and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Innovative has developed a unique Fintech business model that encompasses various segments and opportunities to the unbanked and underbanked consumers,” said Mr. Pedersen. “The COVID-19 outbreak has negatively impacted many consumers and small businesses, and I envision that the Innovative platform and blockchain technology will be able to meaningfully simplify financial service transactions for people. It is great to reconnect with Bill, as he did an outstanding job in helping ZAGG during its critical time of going public, and I look forward to assisting Innovative Payment Solutions with their growth strategy.”

About Innovative Payment Solutions, Inc.

Innovative Payment Solutions, Inc. (“Innovative”) strives to offer cutting edge digital payment solutions for consumers and service providers. Innovative’s ecosystem will span multiple devices such as self-service kiosks, mobile applications and POS terminals offering alternative payment methods to meet the needs of consumers and service providers. (www.innovatepaysolve.com)

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statement of historical fact contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. In some case, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate, “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” or “will” or the or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology and include statements regarding the expected contribution of  Mr. Pedersen as the Company seeks to accelerate its business development and evolve. These forward-looking statements are based on expectations and assumptions as of the date of the press release and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations and assumptions from those set forth or implied by any forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectation include, among others, our ability to leverage the talent, integrity, and experience of Mr. Pedersen to accelerate our business development and continue to evolve, our ability to position the Company for future profitability, the duration and scope of the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide, including the impact to the economy in California and Mexico, and the other factors discussed in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and the Company’s subsequent filings with the SEC, including subsequent periodic reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. The information in this release is provided only as of the date of this release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release on account of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

For investor inquiries please call (818) 864-4004 or email: [email protected].

HAMPSTEAD, Md., Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — On November 16, 2020, the Board of Directors of Farmers and Merchants Bancshares, Inc., the parent of Farmers and Merchants Bank, declared a cash dividend of $.26 per share of common stock, which will be paid on December 18, 2020 to shareholders of record on December 4, 2020.  The $.26 per share dividend is equal to the most recent dividend paid in June 2020. The combined 2020 dividend of $.52 per share represents a 3.9% yield on the current market value of $13.25 per share and represents a 2.0% increase over the $.51 per share dividend paid in 2019. The annual dividend has increased for 10 consecutive years.

Please visit the investor relations section of the Bank’s website, www.fmb1919.bank. It includes press releases, financial information, stock information, peer analysis, and information about Farmers and Merchants Bancshares, Inc. officers and directors. 

Farmers and Merchants Bancshares, Inc. is a financial holding company and the parent of Farmers and Merchants Bank.  Farmers and Merchants Bank was chartered in Maryland in 1919 and has over 100 years of service to the community. The Bank serves the deposit and financing needs of both consumers and businesses in Carroll and Baltimore Counties along the Route 30, Route 795, Route 140, and Route 26 corridors. The main office is located in Upperco, Maryland, with nine additional branches in Owings Mills, Hampstead, Greenmount, Reisterstown, Westminster, and Eldersburg. Certain broker-dealers make a market in the common stock of Farmers and Merchants Bancshares, Inc., and trades are reported through the OTC Markets Group’s Pink Market under the symbol “FMFG”.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Mr. James R. Bosley, Jr.
President
(410) 374-1510, Ext. 104

WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — HAProxy Technologies, provider of the world’s fastest and most widely used software load balancer, today announced that the HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times since its introduction in June 2019. The popular HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller supercharges Kubernetes environments and enables organizations to route traffic to and from containers faster, more reliably, and with improved security compared to any other ingress controller.

Download the free ebook: HAProxy in Kubernetes,Supercharge Your Ingress Routing.

The adoption of both container architectures and Kubernetes as the framework for those environments continues to grow. According to a survey conducted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), in 2019 84 percent of organizations had deployed containers. This was an increase of 15 percent from 2018. In that same report, 78 percent of respondents said that their software of choice for deploying containers was Kubernetes.

In June of 2019, HAProxy Technologies introduced a high-performance Ingress Controller for Kubernetes-hosted applications with TLS offloading, Layer 7 routing, rate limiting, and IP safelisting.

In the intervening months, the HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller has been recognized for its high performance and reliability, among other features. In Kubernetes, high amounts of traffic are expected, and the environment is highly dynamic because of the high number of pods creation, deletion and relocation that is typical. HAProxy, with its Runtime API and Hitless Reloads, excels in such an environment. Having the HAProxy software load balancer as the engine provides the utmost performance, security, and observability at any scale and in any environment.

“The continued popularity of our Ingress Controller is no surprise to HAProxy Technologies,” said Andjelko Iharos, Director of Engineering at HAProxy Technologies. “The HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller gives organizations the power, speed and flexibility necessary to build and maintain Kubernetes applications in today’s most progressive Cloud environments.”

See how HAProxy stacks up against the competition: HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller Benchmark.

About the HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller

The HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller is built to supercharge your Kubernetes environment by adding advanced TCP and HTTP routing that connects clients outside your Kubernetes cluster with containers running inside. The controller is maintained as a distinct open source project, with a regular release cycle, a growing community of developers, and an increasing number of advocates who favor it over other ingress controllers.

About HAProxy Technologies

HAProxy Technologies is the company behind HAProxy, the world’s fastest and most widely-used software load balancer. Organizations rapidly deploy HAProxy products to deliver websites and applications with the utmost performance, observability, and security at any scale and in any environment. ​HAProxy Technologies is headquartered in Waltham, MA, with multiple offices across the US and Europe. ​Learn more at HAProxy.com.

Media Contact:

Daniel Corbett
HAProxy Technologies, LLC
[email protected]
+1 (844) 222-4340 x7512

NEW YORK, Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — SmarTech Analysis, the leading market research firm in the 3D printing/additive manufacturing space just issued a new edition of its market-leading analysis of AM adoption in the eyewear manufacturing segment, comprising sunglasses, eyewear frames, ophthalmic lenses, professional and sporting gear and smartglasses.

In the new report, titled, “Markets for 3D Printing Eyewear 2021”, the firm analyzes the current market landscape and forecasts the next decade of business opportunities, projecting that AM-specific yearly revenue opportunities in the eyewear industry will amount to $2.26 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 20% from 2020.

This figure includes revenues generated by three primary AM-industry specific segments: AM hardware, AM materials and AM services. Overall revenues, including 3D capturing eyewear and software as well as all 3D printed applications, will amount to over 5 billion yearly.

Extensive interviews with key market innovators and drivers were conducted in order to provide this most up-to-date market scenario.

Further details of this report including a detailed description, table of content and excerpt can be found at: https://www.smartechanalysis.com/reports/3d-printing-in-eyewear-from-mass-customization-to-smartglasses-2021/ . Members of the press can receive an executive summary and schedule an interview with the report’s author, Davide Sher, Senior Industry Analyst at SmarTech Analysis.

About the Report:

The report provides an unprecedented analysis deep into the revenue opportunities offered by the global eyewear segment, reflecting advancements in all three key segments where 3D printing technologies are impacting footwear production: prototyping, tooling and final parts. The report also provides an updated analysis of how AM hardware, AM materials, AM service and AM software are impacted by the evolving eyewear industry scenario.

Entirely new in this report, is a full geographic breakdown and localized forecast of the eyewear AM market, for each key segment (hardware, materials, applications).

End-use part production is identified as the key application for eyewear, not just in the long term but in the current market as well. Powder bed fusion processes are dominant, with some alternative technologies also emerging. AM services such as Materialise, with specialized eyewear production lines, are standing out as the clear market leaders and the most ideally suited to reap the benefits from eyewear AM. The application analysis thus focuses on the opportunity around final parts, providing the most accurate data analyses and projections to date of the number and revenues associated with eyewear mass customization, smartglasses advancements and on-demand production.

All key operators in this segment have been identified and classified, all major technologies and all AM material classes have been analyzed for their potential on eyewear part production in order to assess the associated revenue opportunities from all angles. Key stakeholders highlighted include: Materialise, EOS, HP, BASF, Luxexcel, HOYA, Luxottica, Safilo, Facebook and dozens of startups and design studios.

From the Report:

SmarTech Analysis expects that AM-specific yearly revenue opportunities in the eyewear industry will amount to $2.26 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 20% from $327 million in 2020. This figure includes revenues generated by three primary AM-industry specific segments: AM hardware, AM materials and AM services.

Powder bed fusion (PBF) is by far the most common AM technology in eyewear production today, producing as much as 80% to 85% of all final parts (including full end-use products). The technology is also used for prototyping.

The most common material used in eyewear production remains nylon. This material—in particular PA12—is the most versatile and effective material used in all powder bed fusion technologies. In the future it is possible that other nylon materials (such as PA6 and PA66 form BASF) or composite powders containing carbon or glass chopped fibers may become more common as 3D-printed eyewear demand increases and along with the requirements for more advanced material properties. Variations already exist today mainly in terms of finishing treatments.

3D scanners are part of the digital additive manufacturing workflow in a multitude of adoption verticals. Both Apps (that leverage the 3D vision capabilities of the latest mobile devices) and dedicated 3D scanners are now being implemented in the eyewear industry as this consumer product segments moves toward digital production and mass customization. Some of the start-ups offering these services have closed but the majority is growing and evolving its product offers.

SmarTech Analysis expects that future adoption of 3D printing in manufacturing will evolve through two different major pathways. One is by providing the means for several smaller studios to challenge the larger groups by expressing new ideas and offering new customization options. The other is by large groups such as Luxottica and Safilo (among others) to expand their prototyping and product development activities, bringing production in-house to respond even more rapidly to changing fashion trends and client demands. In both cases the value proposition of 3D-printed eyewear is going to significantly affect both production cycle and supply chain dynamics.

About SmarTech Analysis

Since 2013 SmarTech Analysis has published reports on all the important revenue opportunities in the 3D printing/additive manufacturing sector and is considered the leading industry analyst firm providing coverage of this sector. Our company has a client roster that includes the largest 3D printer firms, materials firms and investors in the 3DP/AM sector.

For more details on our company go to www.smartechanalysis.com

AMS 2021, the most focused conference on business intelligence for the additive manufacturing industry will be back for its fourth year, February 9 – 10, 2021. It will be an online event and we will be adding a day of discussion on software and automation for additive manufacturing and a day of discussion on bioprinting to our usual coverage: metals/new materials and medical/dental. As always, our objective for the AMS is that participants will come away highly knowledgeable on the very latest trends in additive manufacturing and full of innovative ideas that they can take back to their organizations. We anticipate 40+ speakers AMS 2021 and will host an online Exhibition Hall where attendees will be able to see the latest 3D printing products.

Contact:

[email protected]

San Diego, CA, Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tesoro Enterprises, Inc. (OTC Pink: TSNP) (“Tesoro”) announced today that the company’s CEO and President, Brian Foote, has agreed to convert over 318 million shares recently purchased by him out of the retail market to a new class of Preferred shares.

The conversion will be transacted following the imminent completion of the merger between Tesoro and HUMBL LLC, which will coincide with the redomiciling of the corporation to Delaware.

Upon completion of the conversion, Tesoro’s issued and outstanding number of common shares will have been reduced by over 860 million shares since Mr. Foote became President of Tesoro.

The company does not anticipate that the number of common shares outstanding will increase during the remainder of 2020 and throughout 2021.

About HUMBL

The mission of HUMBL^® and HUMBL Hubs^™ is to deliver high quality, low cost digital payments and financial services. The HUMBL network was designed to disrupt entrenched regional banks, wire services and roadside finance providers in emerging markets such as Latin America, Caribbean, Asia and Africa to help reduce costs and improve settlement speeds for customers.

The HUMBL^® Mobile App delivers borderless transactions, by integrating multiple currencies, payment methods, banks, blockchain and financial services providers into one-click for the customer. HUMBL^® provides greater access and portability than US only mobile wallet providers, such as Venmo^® and Zelle^®.

For those customers without a smartphone, HUMBL Hubs^™ will allow participating merchants to deliver contactless payments, text ordering and money services across the full pyramid of end-users in these markets.

 “We didn’t build HUMBL for the 450 million digital customers using Apple Pay^®, but for the 7 billion people for whom money has a totally different set of global pathways, access points and cost structures,” according to the CEO of HUMBL, Brian Foote.

The HUMBL corporate website features global brand videos, product tours, market research, white papers and network architecture at www.HUMBLpay.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by the use of the words “may,” “will,” “should,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “continue,” “estimates,” “projects,” “intends,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the Company’s ability to successfully execute its expanded business strategy, including by entering into definitive agreements with suppliers, commercial partners and customers; general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technical advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, regulatory requirements and the ability to meet them, government agency rules and changes, and various other factors beyond the Company’s control.

CONTACT:

HUMBL, LLC
[email protected]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Xendoo, a fintech company offering innovative online accounting and bookkeeping solutions with data-driven insights for small business owners, is now fully integrating QuickBooks into its proprietary platform.

QuickBooks helps more than 3.2 million businesses in the U.S. manage their income and expenses, keeping everything organized in one place. With the deep linking of QuickBooks API into Xendoo’s platform, Xendoo’s team helps QuickBooks users save money on taxes by organizing and syncing all of their critical financial information.

“Following the economic challenges of this year, small business owners are continuously looking for ways to save time and money, and cloud-based accounting is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity,” said Lil Roberts, CEO and founder of Xendoo. “By integrating with QuickBooks, businesses now have a great solution to manage all of their finances and prepare for tax season within one platform.”

QuickBooks is the latest software provider Xendoo has added to its suite of integrations. Xendoo also syncs with Xero, A2X, Gusto, Stripe, Fattmerchant, TaxJar and Veem to help clients save time, improve accuracy and keep books up to date.

“Our partnership aids all QuickBooks users and is especially beneficial to its legacy customers – business owners that have been in business for more than five years,” continued Roberts. “This integration seamlessly brings small businesses to the cloud, which isn’t possible with most traditional CPAs. In a world of automation, Xendoo is bringing a personalized experience to QuickBooks customers in need of online, accurate financial visibility, without sparing them of the personal touch of a real human that cares.”

For more information on Xendoo, visit www.xendoo.com. Visit www.quickbooks.intuit.com for more information on QuickBooks.

About
Xendoo

Launched in 2017, Xendoo is an innovative cloud-based bookkeeping and accounting platform focused on helping small businesses. The fintech company provides small business owners with accessibility to CPAs, predictability of pricing, and speed to their numbers delivered through a technology foundation. Xendoo is reshaping the accounting industry, leveraging technology to deliver financial peace of mind to small business owners so they can focus on doing what they do best – running their business. For more information, visit www.xendoo.com.

About Intuit

Intuit’s mission is to power prosperity around the world. We are a mission-driven, global financial platform company with products including TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint and Turbo, designed to empower consumers, self-employed and small businesses to improve their financial lives. Our platform and products help customers get more money with the least amount of work, while giving them complete confidence in their actions and decisions. Our innovative ecosystem of financial management solutions serves more than 50 million customers worldwide. Please visit us for the latest news and in-depth information about Intuit and its brands and find us on social.

Media Contact

Elsa Anschuetz
Uproar PR for Xendoo
[email protected]
321-236-0102 x233

BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Auth0, the identity platform for application teams, today announced it has been selected as the identity provider to power authentication for Salesforce Customer 360 Identity, its best-in-class consumer identity and access management (CIAM) technology, providing a single, trusted identity for more streamlined user management. Salesforce Customer 360 Identity will go into a pilot phase at the end of the year and will be generally available in early 2021.

Salesforce Customer 360 Identity is one of four products that comprise Customer 360 Truth, a set of data and identity services that enables companies to build a single source of truth for relevant and lasting customer relationships. The leading CIAM, data management, customer data platform, and privacy tools available in Customer 360 Truth provide a unified customer view to maintain customer privacy, security, connect siloed data systems, and harness new digital business.

Driving the frictionless login experiences for all Customer 360 Identity users, Auth0 will provide a seamless signup to drive better conversions, the ability to scale to any size, and a single customer login across all users’ digital properties, eliminating siloed data and providing a single source of truth for IT departments.

“The need for digital transformation has reached new heights, challenging companies to deliver simple, connected, and trusted experiences online,” said, Patrick Stokes, EVP, Platform Shared Services at Salesforce. “Customer 360 Truth delivers just that. And, combined with Auth0, companies will be able to engage with their customers like never have before—authenticating millions of users quickly and securely.”

“Customer data is the cornerstone of Customer Success and hinges on the ability to have a comprehensive view of your customers,” said Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight. “As a customer of both Auth0 and Salesforce, I’m excited about their integration to help streamline how we access and map user data.”

Auth0’s deep developer roots and the ability to provide a superior pro-code developer experience offers a natural integration into Salesforce’s platform. Auth0’s platform provides the out-of-box experience that most customers need. Developers can easily customize their login flows via code, and also utilize the large library of integrations readily available from Auth0 Marketplace.

“Persistent challenges B2C customers face—scale, needing a holistic view of the customer, and enhanced security—are consistent across the industry, especially with the urgent speed in which companies are prioritizing their transformation efforts,” said Shiven Ramji, Chief Product Officer at Auth0. “This need is only going to accelerate as more businesses are forced to transform and we will be there every step of the way with Salesforce customers going through this process.”

In July 2020, Salesforce Ventures was the lead investor in Auth0’s $120 million Series F round, bringing Auth0’s valuation to $1.92 billion and total capital raised to more than $330 million.

About Auth0

Auth0 provides a platform to authenticate, authorize, and secure access for applications, devices, and users. Security and development teams rely on Auth0’s simplicity, extensibility, and expertise to make identity work for everyone. Safeguarding more than 4.5 billion login transactions each month, Auth0 secures identities so innovators can innovate, and empowers global enterprises to deliver trusted, superior digital experiences to their customers around the world.

For more information, visit https://auth0.com or follow @auth0 on Twitter.

Media Contacts:

Global Communications
Auth0
[email protected]

Hannah Carroll
Matter for Auth0
[email protected]

LAKE MURRAY, S.C., Nov. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The World Food Championships (WFC) just announced a new partnership with Capital City/Lake Murray Country, South Carolina to host a Super Regional qualifying event on March 4, 2021. Through the charitable event called “Taste of Lake Murray,” local chefs will be invited to compete for six Golden Tickets and the chance to represent the first-ever Team Columbia/Lake Murray at the 2021 WFC next fall.

“Lake Murray makes up parts of metropolitan Columbia, historic Newberry, rural Saluda and the County of Lexington, which is one of the most vibrant and fastest-growing counties in South Carolina,” states Miriam Atria, President/CEO of Capital City/Lake Murray Country. “This area continues to experience growth in the culinary scene and our regional tourism board wants to encourage and promote our food scene on a national scale through this partnership with WFC. This event will allow us to focus and showcase our regional restaurants/chefs, who have suffered during this pandemic.”

The “Taste of Lake Murray” event will be an intense culinary battle for local cooks and restaurants to claim their spot on the newest WFC Regional team. The event will be hosted at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Columbia, SC, where more than 20 chefs are expected to create samples for the event’s 800 patrons. The categories that will be up for grabs through the WFC Golden Ticket process are Bacon, Barbecue, Burger, Chef, Dessert, Recipe, Sandwich, Seafood, Soup and Steak. Thanks to WFC’s growing state and regional partnerships, the development of competitive teams from a strategic area has continued to grow. This latest team addition for South Carolina will join a robust and experienced group of teams from Alabama, Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, Maryland and Indiana, where the previous Final Table event was held and Lidia Haddadian was named the 8th World Food Champion. 

“We really look forward to learning more about the cuisine and talent from Lake Murray Country,” said Mike McCloud, WFC President and CEO. “These strategic qualifiers not only highlight the great local cuisine from America’s diverse regions, but they end up giving new groups of chefs and cooks a chance to develop life-long friends at WFC that share the same passion and purpose of food through competition.”

More information on Taste of Lake Murray can be found at lakemurraycountry.com. To stay up-to-date on all things Food Sport, follow the World Food Championships on Twitter (@WorldFoodChamp), Facebook and Instagram (@WorldFoodChampionships).

About World Food Championships

The World Food Championships (WFC) is the highest stakes food competition in the world. This multi-day, live event culinary competition showcases some of the world’s best cooks who compete for food, fame and fortune in 10 categories. In 2019, more than 450 culinary teams from 11 countries and 42 American states competed in WFC’s Main Event. In August, the 10 Category Champs faced-off in the $100,000 challenge that determined a new World Food Champion at The Final Table: Indianapolis.

Alli Sparks
World Food Championships
[email protected]