Wegman Touts 'New Generation Sales Call'

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Five CPG manufacturers, including Smucker‘s and Coca-Cola, are making “new generation sales calls” with Wegmans Food Markets, according to Danny Wegman, chief executive officer of the Rochester, N.Y.-based chain. In a keynote address yesterday at the Food Marketing Institute‘s Distribution/Supply Chain Conference here, Wegman said that this type of sales call, in which supply chain disruptions are minimized so that Wegmans and its suppliers can work on merchandising products, is “in its infancy. We‘re starting with a small group to make sure we do it well.” Integral to the new generation sales call is the use of product data synchronization between trading partners; Wegmans is fully synchronized with most of its suppliers. Sandy Douglas, president and chief operating officer, North America Group, Coca-Cola, who spoke after Wegman, said that “item and price synchronization must be synchronized for back-office discrepancies to be minimized.” -- Michael Garry