SALISBURY, N.C. — Food Lion introduced last week what it described as the next evolution of vendor collaboration. The new model consists of two tiers: standard and gold. “Each tier requires a certain level of data sharing, a certain amount of collaboration, and a certain amount of resources to understand and share insights with each other,” Food Lion’s chief operating officer, Cathy Green, said Wednesday at IRI’s Reinventing CPG & Retail Summit in Kissimmee, Fla. Describing the effort as a way to help Food Lion become more customer-centric, Green said participating manufacturers will collaborate with the chain on segment-specific marketing and merchandising; store-cluster specific assortments; and banner-specific manufacturer programs. “In partnership with [vendors], we can develop programs that make sense for specific banners,” Green said. She stressed that the effort is not an attempt to build a profit center. “We want to grow sales,” she said. “We believe this model will do exactly that.”

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