Grocery & Department Stores
Geoff White named EVP & Chief Merchandising Officer of Albertsons Companies
Albertsons Companies has promoted Own Brands President Geoff White to Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer.
Under White’s leadership, Own Brands penetration grew from 23.0 percent in the 2017 fiscal year to 25.3 percent in the company’s most recently reported quarter. O Organics and Open Nature represent 23.6 percent of the total natural and organic sales at Albertsons Cos., a 152 basis point growth from the first quarter of the 2018 fiscal year. In 2018, the Own Brands team launched Signature Reserve, an ultra-premium label that features globally sourced ingredients.
It valsonindia.com generic tadalafil uk is chewable tablets of 5mg and complete pack contains 100mg tablets. Therefore, it is considered as one of the best herbal remedies cheap viagra from usa for sexual weakness treatment. What they promise online viagra sales they make it sure that their subscribers get them whenever they want to. Kamagra is the medicine of curing male reproductive dysfunction. buy cialis online “Geoff is a customer-centric leader who brings a unique combination of creativity and analytics to achieve growth,” said Vivek Sankaran, Albertsons President and Chief Executive Officer. “I look forward to working with him to transform our merchandising capabilities.”
White began his career with the company as a general clerk at Safeway in Burnaby, British Columbia, in 1981. He eventually became director of Canadian produce operations for 210 stores. He held leadership roles in produce, dairy, frozen, deli/food service, produce, floral, and branded concepts at the Safeway corporate office from 2004 to 2015. In 2015, he was named senior vice president of marketing and merchandising for the Northern California Division. In 2017, he was appointed president of the company’s Own Brands team.
Fairway Campaign to Highlight Greek Authenticity
By Lorrie Baumann
Fairway Market, which operates stores in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, has partnered with Olive Roots on a program that will give its customers the chance to discover a variety of authentic foods from small Greek and Cypriot producers. “I am looking forward to our Greece country program to see the success of the new brands we selected,” said Chris Garzino, Fairway Market’s Director of Specialty. “Many of the brands will be new to the U.S. and I believe they will give our customer a greater feel into the culture of the country.”
Olive Roots is a boutique specialty food exporter that specializes in streamlining the process of bringing more Greek food products into the U.S. “Lots of these products are really hard to find,” said Olive Roots Founder Katerina Barka. “You’d have to travel and get lost on your way to find the village – it’s impossible to find them anywhere.”
Barka launched her company at the 2018 Summer Fancy Food Show after noticing that the Americans she knew were appreciative of the Greek products she was sharing with them, but neither they nor she could find them in American stores. When she approached Fairway Market, the buyers’ first response was a little quizzical, since she was making the kind of inquiry on behalf of Greek food and food producers that they’d ordinarily expect to hear from a country’s trade mission. “They looked at us like, ‘Who are you?’” Barka said. But they listened to her proposal and eventually agreed that they’d go to Greece and let Barka introduce them to artisanal food producers from Greece and Cyprus. “They had meetings with all of them,” Barka said. “We presented them with the best of the best companies.”
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Ultimately, Fairway agreed to provide shelf space for products from 18 of those companies for a six-month trial period. “Those that do well will stay here indefinitely, like any other brand,” Barka said. Fairway will also kick off the trial with a three-week promotion that includes publicity and in-store demonstrations and sampling events. “As part of the promo campaign, we will run a contest,” Barka said. The contest will offer participating shoppers the chance to win one of two culinary-focused trips, one to Greece and one to Cyprus. The promotional campaign will kick off with a September 26 breakfast at Fairway’s Red Hook store and continue for the following three weeks through October 17.
The products selected by Fairway for its shelves include estate olive oils, natural jams and juices, baking mixes, artisan cheeses, spiced sea salts, raw honey and honey spreads and traditional soup mixes, cookies and sesame spreads. “Most of the products will make their debut in the U.S. market and are products that, until now, one could only find if they traveled to Greece and a local gave them foods from their pantry,” Barka said.
Barka is optimistic that Fairway’s shoppers will enjoy the opportunity that Fairway is presenting. She points out that Americans are interested in the Mediterranean diet and that many are already familiar with Greek cuisine. Greek-Americans have done a good job of running festivals spotlighting Greek cuisine across the U.S., so there are Americans everywhere who are potential customers for the products they’d need to duplicate aspects of that cuisine for their own tables, she said. “We are looking into opening up more stores for these kind of products,” she said. “Americans love Greek food – there’s not a lot of real Greek food here. We will see more…. Eventually, we’d like to have a lot of these products available.”
Barons Market Thrives in Southern California
By Lorrie Baumann
Soon after Barons Market opens its ninth southern California store early next year, it’ll host its first Barons Backroom Beer Pairing event. As happens quarterly at each of the Barons Markets, the store will sell $15 tickets for the event, staff it with employees to provide four small plates and paired with local craft beers for each dish, and 60 to 100 people will show up to eat supper in their grocer’s back room or out on the loading dock.
Rachel Shemirani, Senior Vice President of Barons Market and daughter of Founder Joe Shemirani, who opened the Barons Market in San Diego’s Point Loma neighborhood along with his brothers in 1993, happily anticipates that the event won’t bring in a dime for the store. “This is something we’re paying for,” she said. “It brings customers to the store. It gets a lot of attention for local craft breweries and community organizations. We raise a lot of good money for local charities, and we’ve become wonderful partners for them. We believe it’s money very well spent.”
Barons donates 100 percent of the ticket sales for the events to one of a rotating list of local charities – sometimes Feeding America/Feeding San Diego, sometimes breast cancer research, sometimes local dog rescue organizations. New to this year, each store chose a local elementary school to benefit during the January pairing with Refuge Brewery. “We try to make the charity local to where those stores are, so they’re giving back to their local communities,” Shemirani said. “We know that if our communities thrive, everybody wins.”
Like her father and uncles, Shemirani believes that the events develop customer loyalty that helps the chain compete with online grocers. “Amazon Go doesn’t donate for your kids’ team fundraiser,” she said. “That keeps your customers loyal and appreciative and supportive of your business. People who shop at brick-and-mortar stores shop with their hearts.”
“It’s super easy. That really is the antidote to online grocery shopping,” she continued. “My advice to other independent retailers is not to be scared. Do what you do.”
Barons Market’s focus on customer experience starts in the parking lot, where fresh flowers and produce are displayed in front of the store. “A customer decides if they want to shop in your store in the first five seconds,” Shemirani said. “Our displays there are fresh, full and clean.” Once inside the store, customers see orchids, more fresh produce and fresh baguettes from a local bakery. “They see a smiling employee,” Shemirani said. “It really is about customer experience. We extend customer service to our vendors, our distributors and other partners — it’s about being kind and respecting people.”
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Inside the 15,000 to 20,000 square foot store, customers will find 9,000 to 10,000 SKUs. Demonstrations are scheduled eight hours a day to introduce customers to new products, which are selected every Wednesday by a food panel of store managers, department managers and Joe Shemirani. “For about three hours, we taste, discuss, judge and vote,” Shemirani said.
Each week, the tasting panel will try 80 to 120 product samples and choose five or six of them to carry in the stores. “We discontinue about 10 items to make sure that the selection is intentionally limited,” Shemirani said. “Our customers are busier than ever, and we not only value their wallets — we negotiate the best price for them we can — but we also value their time…. Our customers will shop typically three to five times a week and then go to Costco for paper products. That really is our typical customer.”
The smallish store footprint and limited selection allow many customers to be in and out of the store in about 10 minutes. A few may be there two or three times in the course of a day. “They’re now wanting to shop fresh,” Shemirani said. “They don’t want preservatives. They’re going to buy it and consume it within the hour or within 24 hours.”
Around the store’s perimeter, they’ll find an olive and antipasto bar, fresh salad bar and hot soup bar. Each store makes fresh sandwiches and entrees every morning, and the chain is rolling out hot food into the stores as health permits are secured.
The same tasting panel that decides on pantry products selects the prepared food menu. “The hot soup bar is popular. We could change our name to Barons Market Soups,” Shemirani joked. “Our Mac n’ Cheese, chicken curry and beef short ribs are all doing really well in our new hot food bar. The salad bar where people create their own has been a huge success. The kids love to make their own salads.”
Pricing for everything in the store is on an everyday low price model. “The only time we change our prices is if our costs change up or down,” Shemirani said. “True value is for everything. We have good food from good ingredients at very good prices.”
