Louisville, KY – Food Marketing Institute recognizes four exceptional store managers for their remarkable leadership and career achievements at Future Leaders eXperience. Among their numerous accomplishments, the Store Manager Award recipients pioneered new initiatives supporting ecommerce tactics in their stores, fostered new talent in food retail and served their communities to the highest levels.
“In a world increasingly enamored with technology, it becomes a point of differentiation to have quality, meaningful connections with people,” said FMI President and CEO Leslie G. Sarasin. “Store managers make that point of differentiation a flesh and blood reality. They are motivating their employees to create memorable in-store and online experiences that keep shoppers personally engaged and coming back for more.”
Congratulations to the 19th annual Store Manager Award Winners:
Category A: (1-49 stores)
Al Gartner, Lunds & Byerlys, Woodbury, Minnesota
Category B (50-199 stores)
Kathy Sweigert, Giant Martin’s, State College, Pennsylvania
Category C (200+ stores)
Pam Hudson, Dillons Food Stores, a division of The Kroger Co., Hutchinson, Kansas
Category D (International)
Joanne Walker, SPAR Northern Ireland/Henderson Group, Co. Down, N. Ireland
2018 Store Manager People’s Pick
Mitch Cochran, Food City, Cleveland, Tennessee
Each 2018 Store Manager Awards winners receives a $1,000-prize and a crystal award. For the fourth year, FMI continued to host the “People’s Pick” Facebook contest that received more than 8,800 votes. The “People’s Pick” contest winner receives a special trophy and $500 to celebrate his or her store’s employees. Learn more about the finalists and winners at FMI.org/StoreManagerAwards.
Food Marketing Institute proudly advocates on behalf of the food retail industry, which employs nearly 5 million workers and represents a combined annual sales volume of almost $800 billion. FMI member companies operate nearly 33,000 retail food stores and 12,000 pharmacies. FMI membership includes the entire spectrum of food retail venues; single owner grocery stores, large multi-store supermarket chains, pharmacies, online and mixed retail stores. Through programs in public affairs, food safety, research, education, health and wellness and industry relations, FMI offers resources and provides valuable benefits to almost 1,000 food retail and wholesale member companies and serves 85 international retail member companies. In addition, FMI has almost 500 associate member companies that provide products and services to the food retail industry. For more information, visit www.fmi.org and for information regarding the FMI Foundation, visit www.fmifoundation.org.
Source: Food Marketing Institute