News Briefs

Walmart Inc. has appointed Laura Himes, previously its senior director for produce merchandising, to the position of VP sourcing – fresh for the company’s Walmart International division.

Himes joined Walmart in 2013 to head up produce merchandising and sustainability efforts in regard to packaging, pollinators, vertical farming, blockchain implementation and ethical treatment of farm workers. She has more than three decades of experience in the produce industry in all areas, from farm to fork.

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“It is a huge honor to be appointed VP sourcing – fresh and to extend my work in implementing Walmart’s sourcing strategies around resilience, trust and value,” said Himes. “Walmart is on a journey to become a regenerative company, and where and how we source matters to our business, our customers and our communities. I’m thrilled to lead this work.”

Before her time at Walmart, Himes worked at Dole/SunnyRidge Farms as farm operations manager/R&D. She was also Driscoll’s managing director of Portugal operations and held various roles at Chiquita, where she began her career.

Himes is also chair of the board and a member of the executive committee for the Washington, D.C.-based International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), and she chairs the organization’s diversity and inclusion committee.

Each week, approximately 230 million customers and members visit Walmart’s more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites under 46 banners in 24 countries. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company employs approximately 2.3 million associates worldwide. Walmart U.S. is No. 1 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.

The Consumer Brands Association (CBA) has appointed Genna Gent as its EVP of industry engagement. In this position, she will engineer products, sales and business growth and oversee the areas of membership, industry solutions and meetings and events.

Gent joins the Arlington, Va.-based CBA (formerly the Grocery Manufacturers Association) from the Chicago-headquartered McDonald’s Corp. At the quick-service restaurant giant, she led the public policy and government affairs function, where she successfully impacted important legislation and shaped the company’s COVID-related government relations strategy, among other accomplishments. She also headed up government affairs for the American Beverage Association and served as deputy chief of staff for former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granhom.

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“This is such an important hire at such an important time for the association and I could not be more pleased to be welcoming Genna to the team,” said David Chavern, CBA’s president and CEO. “Genna brings exceptional experience as a strategic leader spanning government, association and corporate sectors. Serving in this critical role, I’m confident Genna will continue to strengthen Consumer Brands’ position as the leading voice for the consumer products industry and expand the value proposition of the association.”

Gent said she is grateful for the opportunity to work with brands and consumers in this new capacity.  “I look forward to working with the talented team to continue to build on the incredible progress to expand membership and serve our members through first-class engagement and networking opportunities and advocacy work,” she remarked.

Stew Leonard Sr., founder of the Stew Leonard’s grocery store chain has died at the age of 93, according to a notice on the Stew Leonard’s website. A resident of Westport, Conn., Leonard passed away on April 26 at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital following a brief illness.

Born in Norwalk, Conn., in 1929, Leonard started out working for his family’s dairy business, but by the late 1960s, he had decided to open a retail dairy store where kids could watch milk being bottled while parents shopped in a farmer’s market atmosphere. In December 1969, the first Stew Leonard’s location made its debut, a 17,000 square-foot-store carrying just eight items. 

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Today, Stew Leonard’s is a $600 million family-owned and -operated business with seven stores and more than 2,500 employees. The company is currently run by Stew’s son, Stew Leonard Jr., with help from his siblings. Five of Leonard’s grandchildren have also joined the business, including COO Jake Tavello. One of Leonard’s favorite pastimes throughout his life was to stand at a Stew Leonard’s store entrance to greet customers, often by name. He was also a noted philanthropist.

In 1993, Leonard was sentenced to 52 months in federal prison for tax evasion, an experience he later addressed in his 2009 memoir.

According to the family, the memorial service and burial will be private, with a celebration of life to take place at a later date. Donations in Leonard’s memory may be made to the Stew Leonard III Water Safety Foundation, an organization founded after the drowning death of his grandson in 1989, which helps to fund swimming lessons for children. Cards to the family can be sent to 100 Westport Avenue, Norwalk, CT 06851.

In addition to his wife of 70 years, Marianne Guthman Leonard, and their four children, Leonard’s survivors include 13 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Datasembly, a provider of real-time product pricing, promotions, and assortment data for retailers and CPG brands, has added a new product matching service. This feature offers a large base of private label and national brand product matches to deliver more clarity into today’s competitive product landscape.

The new service uses a proprietary match maintenance engine to keep product matching collections fresh, according to Datasembly. Combining the company’s extensive data with machine learning, the service identifies matching products across the entirety of the market, including comparisons between private label brands and those from private label to national brands. The technology also allows for matching for variable weight and PLU products.

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“With the unprecedented rise of grocery prices and the subsequent growth of private label products, real-time tracking of competitor products and assortment data has become a critical need for our partners,” said CEO Ben Reich. “Our new product matching platform arms CPGs and retailers with a fast and reliable tool that offers transparency into the marketplace, allowing them to glean insights that are more important now than ever as we battle with an unsettled economy.”  

One early user is Wisconsin-based Skogen’s Festival Foods. "We are leveraging Datasembly's high quality, detailed product matching for several thousand private label products,” reported Ben Plaza, business analytics manager for that grocery chain. “The accuracy, breadth, and consistency of the deliverables enable us to pursue new strategic retail opportunities." 

A survey of 1,000 retail and grocery associates by front-line enablement solution provider Axonify has found that many front-line workers lack proper training to deal with theft and frustrated shoppers, leaving the employees without preparation or support to deal with these issues.

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Additional findings from Waterloo, Ontario-based Axonify are as follows:

• Theft is rising: Amid an uncertain economy, consumers are under pressure to make ends meet, driving many to steal. In fact, half of retail/grocery front-line workers surveyed witnessed a customer stealing or attempting to steal from their store in the last six months. Further, more than a quarter of those workers did nothing in response, because some believed that they lacked the skills to handle the situation (28%). 

• Hostile customer situations place new pressure on retail employees: Two in five front-line retail workers feel scared going into work because of an increase in volatile customer situations (40%). These range from everyday customer conflicts all the way up to in-store violence. 

• Retail workers need more training to feel prepared and safe: Although theft is common, 20% of retail/grocery front-line workers feel unprepared to deal with it. This may be because another 21% said that their employers haven’t given them the right tools and training to manage and defuse tense customer situations.

“By providing retail and grocery workers with the right training and support to manage these challenging conversations, front-line organizations can help improve worker safety and well-being,” wrote Alex Kinsella in an Axonify blog post. “This level of training and enablement not only impacts how associates show up to work, but it also ripples across productivity, retention and recruitment, all critical factors in today’s labor market.”

SpartanNash is opening up a new scholarship program to support outstanding students who are leaders in their communities. The Our Family 2023 Scholarship program is named after the company’s signature private label brand.

Students who live in a state served by SpartanNash can apply to receive a $2,000 scholarship that helps them in their undergraduate, graduate or vocational studies. Applications are open between May 1 and Aug. 31, and winners will be announced on Nov. 1.

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According to information from the Michigan-based food solutions company, scholarship recipients will be chosen based on multiple short essays that showcase their community involvement through extracurricular activities, charity work or other good works. "Rooted in the neighborhoods we serve, we are proud to recognize student leaders who are inspiring community engagement through volunteering or other acts of kindness," said Amy McClellan, SVP and chief marketing officer. "Supporting students in their academic journey while recognizing community contributions is perfectly aligned with our mission to deliver the ingredients for a better life."

SpartanNash’s core businesses include distributing grocery products to independent and chain retailers, its corporate-owned retail stores, and U.S. military commissaries and exchanges, as well as fresh produce distribution and fresh food processing. No. 41 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America, the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company serves customer locations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Europe, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Djibouti, Korea and Japan. SpartanNash also operates 147 supermarkets and employs 17,500-plus associates.