ATLANTA — SN will highlight the winners of its Category Excellence Awards at a banquet at the annual Category Management Association conference here, scheduled for Oct. 27-29.
The winners are selected by SN editors as the suppliers who best serve food retailers' needs, based on feedback from retailers and other industry participants. The winners will be profiled in the Oct. 12 issue of SN.
The conference will feature the CMA's first-ever roundtable sessions where attendees will be able to meet with retailers, suppliers and university representatives for 40-minute discussions to improve the relationships among trading partners.
It will also feature the unveiling of specific certification standards for category management across the industry.
CMA founding director Donna Frazier said those requirements will be “a living, breathing document that will change as the industry changes. But there has been no common language among category managers until now.”
The standards, which were introduced in brief form at last year's association meeting, have been expanded into a 30-page document and a one-page grid that sets out the requirements at each level of category management — requirements that can be satisfied with university courses, third-party training or customized courses given by retailers and manufacturers, Frazier explained.
For the second year, the conference will also feature assigned seating at all meals, with retailers assigned to each table as facilitators to make introductions and stimulate discussions in a relaxed setting, Frazier said.
Keynoting the conference will be Denny Belcastro, vice president of customer development and industry affairs for Kraft Foods North America, Northfield, Ill., speaking on “New Ways of Working Together.”
Other speakers will include:
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Don Whitworth, space planning manager for Winn-Dixie Stores, Jacksonville, Fla., and Denny Salomonson, national shelf and merchandising manager for PepsiCo, Purchase, N.Y., on consumer-centric shelf planning.
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Gus Durso, director of retail space management for Wawa, Wawa, Pa., on the c-store company's retail space management tool.
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Luis Herrera, sub-director of category management for H-E-B Mexico, on a category management case study by the chain.
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Ujjwal Deepak, manager of cash-and-carry business development for Woolworths India, discussing the untapped opportunities for vendors to cater to fast-growing rural areas in India.
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Dave Boissevain, director of retail strategy and planning for Frito-Lay, Plano, Texas, on “Aggressive Assortment SKU Optimization.”
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Ted Williams, vice president, category management support and services for Rite Aid, Harrisburg, Pa.
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Tammy Montero, managing partner, global organization and competitive development practices, The Partnering Group, Cincinnati.
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Bob Wong, director of category management leadership for Del Monte Foods, San Francisco, on leveraging existing data to gain shopper insights.
Three general sessions will feature:
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Troy Prothero, supply chain manager for Delhaize America, discussing how Vendor Plus — the supplier collaboration program initiated last year that involves more than 100 suppliers — is changing the way his chain performs category management.
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Manny Zayas, director of North America category management for PepsiCo, speaking on the value of category management within an organization.
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Brian Harris, chairman of The Partnering Group, and Win Weber, chairman and chief executive officer of Winston Weber & Associates, Memphis, Tenn., sharing leading-edge insights.
The conference will feature two major workshops:
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“7 Habits of Highly Effective Category Managers,” based on key principles from the book of the same name by Dr. Stephen Covey. It will involve a practical “how-to” strategy on implementing those principles to raise the level of trust and effectiveness between trading partners.
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“Enhancing Collaboration Through Shopper Insights and Shopper Marketing,” where representatives of Winston Weber & Associates will suggest ways to align shopper insights, merchandising and marketing across functions.
