Tops Friendly Markets Partners With Local Manufacturer

Tops Friendly Markets, a leading full-service grocery retailer in New York, northern Pennsylvania, western Vermont and north central Massachusetts, has teamed up with Redland Foods to produce its Tops Brand snack nuts and trail mix products in western New York.

Redland, an affiliate of Trophy Foods, first expanded to the U.S. from Canada in 2014. The company has already created 20 new jobs for the community and invested over $2.5 million into western New York, and has plans for further growth in jobs and capital investment in 2017.

Having recently rebranded and reformulated thousands of items over the past two years, and added or reformulated hundreds of items with an emphasis on cleaner ingredients, Tops was seeking a company that offered flexibility as well as a manufacturer willing to work within its high standards of quality and transparency. Making the product locally also guarantees the freshest and highest quality products possible for its customers and was a priority when Tops was seeking a vendor.

“Whether it was producing smaller batches or helping us to develop a blend of flavors that no other national brand offers, Redland helped us to develop a program to meet our needs all within our guidelines,” says Nicky Walsh, director of business development for Daymon. Daymon, a private brand development group, works closely with Tops Markets to develop several of the Tops Brand products.

“Redland Foods is very proud to partner with Tops Markets on their new initiative to provide their customers with innovative, healthy snacking nut products,” says Joseph Milando, vice president of sales. “We established very early on a great working relationship with the Tops team in developing and launching a wide assortment of snacking nut items meant to cater and indulge their customers on great tasting snacking nuts!”

Frank Curci, chief executive officer and chairman for Tops Friendly Markets, adds, “Working with local manufacturers is something Tops takes great pride in, so when seeking a vendor to manufacturer its 18 varieties of snack nuts and trail mixes, Tops was pleased to find Redland conveniently located right in our backyard on Sonwil Drive in Cheektowaga, N.Y.”