A shout-out to produce managers plus the origin story of Love Your Produce Manager Day

We're delighted to bring out of the archives today a conversation from a couple years back with Alex Jackson, vice president of procurement and sales for Frieda's Branded Produce, about the origin of Love Your Produce Manager Day, a holiday that Frieda's created back in 2012. Before that discussion…

Laura Brown of Kroger, Melanie Taylor of Harmons, Yvette Waters of Raley's — Retail Dietitian Roundtable

We’ve got a special treat for you today – a roundtable discussion with three retail dietitians who, along with being nutrition experts, have excellent insight into the consumer and are incredibly plugged into marketing at their companies. Our panelists are Harmons registered dietitian nutritionist …

Anne-Marie Roerink talks packaged produce, value-added, generational trends and more

Hello and welcome to The Produce Retail Podcast! Our esteemed guest for this week's episode is Anne-Marie Roerink, the principal of 210 Analytics. Anne-Marie is well known to many folks in the produce world for her insightful reports and presentations in collaboration with Circana and associations …

Produce retail veteran Dan Weis talks leadership, department resets, career highlights and more

We're delighted to welcome as our guest today Dan Weis, a longtime produce retail veteran who's been working in grocery stores for most of his life — including as a young kid tagging along with his dad on Saturdays! Dan has spent the majority of his career, more than 30 years, at King Kullen, a fam…

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, …