PUBLIX IS AMONG CATEGORY MASTERS WINNERS

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Publix Super Markets, Coca-Cola North America and Acosta Sales and Marketing Co. were named "category masters" at last week's ACNielsen Category Masters conference here.

trading partners, who were asked in a polling of a portion of the readership of both SN and Brand Marketing to identify which companies they considered to be the best practitioners of category management. Retailers were asked to choose a manufacturer partner, manufacturers were asked to choose a retailer and both were asked to choose a sales agency.

Representatives of each of the designated companies accepted awards presented at the conference by David Merrefield, vice president, editorial director, SN and Brand Marketing, and Tim Callahan, president, ACNielsen U.S.

Some of the reasons that readers selected the three companies are that:

Publix has been using category management initiatives since 1991, at which time the company restructured its buying department.

Since then, Publix has evolved from pilot efforts in selected categories to the creation of a purchasing department featuring 12 category managers and their category teams. The managers report to four business development directors who are in charge of nearly all grocery purchasing for the chain of 670 stores.

Dave Bornmann, vice president of grocery purchasing at Publix, accepted the award. Coca-Cola has helped retailers expand the beverage category and increase sales for more than a century, but its present business practices are defined in its outlook on category management, namely that category management is a retailer business process and that Coke's obligation is to listen to retailers describe what they want to accomplish in a category to help them build their business accordingly.

Dave Campbell, director of category management services at Coca-Cola North America, accepted the award.

Acosta has long been recognized as a leader when it comes to helping retailers and manufacturers increase sales and cut costs. That success is exemplified by its close relationship to major retailers such as Kroger, Albertson's and Safeway, as well as its work with major manufacturers such as Clorox and Dannon.

Paul Price, vice president of marketing at Acosta, accepted the award.

Additional news-feature treatment of the three winners is planned for the SN and Brand Marketing issues of Sept. 17. Brand is a monthly supplement of SN. Both are units of Fairchild Publications, New York.