FINAST FINE-TUNING CATEGORY MANAGEMENT

BOB BAUER

MAPLE HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Category management has enabled Finast here to get closer to its customers.

Speaking at the Frozen Food Month Kickoff in Cleveland, Greg Spragg, Finast's executive vice president of marketing and store operations, said Finast has placed a greater emphasis on marketing.

"We've created a circumstance where we are expecting and enabling category managers to spend much more time on marketing; spend much more time in the field, get closer to their customers and do a much more effective job in creating strategies that can be effective when you move them into the store," Spragg said.

"We've created an organization that integrates the strategic planning and the execution process in the supply chain function, an organization that holds together the strategic planning and the execution on the going-to-market shop."

Spragg said Finast, which operates 41 stores ranging in size predominantly from 50,000-70,000 square feet, restructured its category management teams. Included in that change was frozen food, which accounts for 20% of the chain's selling square footage.

"We now have a category procurement manager who's supported by a specialist analyst, and we have a category marketing manager who's supported by a specialist analyst."