Chick-fil-A Supply's Clark Roper talks intentional leadership, investing in young team members, and lessons from his retail days

We're delighted to welcome as our guest for this week's episode Clark Roper, a senior team leader at Chick-fil-A Supply, which is a subsidiary of Chick-fil-A. Clark has been with Chick-fil-A since 2022, but before that, he spent seven years as a produce buyer for Piggly Wiggly. Along with reflectio…

The Fresh Market produce manager Dan Weis and store manager Michael Gillespie

We're delighted to have as our guests this week produce manager Dan Weis and store manager Michael Gillespie of The Fresh Market. In the grocery industry broadly, many companies try to be everything to every shopper, but The Fresh Market has a unique approach, focusing on premium meal solutions, sp…

Industry veteran Blaine Heilman on transition from individual contributor to team leader

We're delighted to welcome for this week's episode Blaine Heilman, a produce industry veteran who’s entering a new career chapter as a consultant and sales director of Transcend Leadership Collective. Blaine’s previous roles have included president of sales at Sage Fruit, senior sourcing manager at…

Associated Food Stores director of produce and floral Leigh Vaughn

We're delighted to welcome as our guest for this week's episode Leigh Vaughn, director of produce and floral for Associated Food Stores. Leigh has been with AFS for 16 years now and was with Lee’s Marketplace for 13 years before that. In this week's conversation, he and The Produce Retail Podcast h…

Claudia St. John on improving retention, reducing turnover, career pathing and more — State of the Produce Manager Series

We're delighted to have as our guest on this week's episode Claudia St. John, the founder and CEO of consulting, recruiting and training firm The Workplace Advisors. As regular listeners might recall, The Produce Retail Podcast host Ashley Nickle recently published the first-ever State of the Produ…

Dave Dunkak on accountability, communication and priorities as a manager

We've got an extra-special guest on this week's episode of The Produce Retail Podcast — longtime sales director and manager Dave Dunkak, who also happens to be the dad of host Ashley Nickle! Dave is in a different industry, but he has extensive experience navigating some of the key challenges that …

Veteran produce director Josh Padilla on forced distributions, merchandising and options, labor and more

We're delighted to have returning to the podcast as our guest today Josh Padilla, a veteran produce director who most recently led the produce team at Marketplace Bermuda. Josh has also led produce at Citarella in New York and at Gerrity’s in Pennsylvania. His career has also included Krasdale Food…

Getting your team to buy in — Wendy McManus on the power of finding the purpose in your work — State of the Produce Manager Series

Do you ever get frustrated because it seems like certain team members just don't care about the work as much as you do? If you're trying to move people from the "just a job" mentality to a place of pride and ownership, give this conversation a listen. Our guest is Wendy McManus, leadership coach an…

Dave Mitchell on career pathing — State of the Produce Manager Series

If you're a regular listener, you might recall we surveyed more than 200 produce managers a while back and recently released the first-ever State of the Produce Manager report based on the findings of that survey. One of our takeaways was on the importance of career pathing for produce managers. In…

Merchandiser/broker/consultant Scott Horner on labor and customer service — State of the Produce Manager Series

We're delighted to have as our guest on this episode Scott Horner, owner of EMP, Everything Matters Produce. Scotty has a long history in produce retail, starting with about 20 years as a produce manager for Ahold, Shaw’s, Big Y, and Tri Town Foods. Since then he’s been a merchandiser, supervisor, …