Jeff Brown, founder and CEO of Brown’s Super Stores Inc., has been named the “Pete Manos Retail Executive of the Year,” the publishers of Food World and Food Trade News announced this month. Brown’s selection was the result of tabulating votes from Best-Met Publishing’s web site, www.best-met.com, e-mail correspondence and phone calls from our readers.
The award was first presented to Pete Manos in 1999 and was subsequently named after him. Manos, the former chairman and CEO of Giant Food Inc., received the award upon his retirement from the Landover, MD chain where he spent 39 years. The award is now given to a food industry executive annually, in recognition of distinguished industry service, leadership and community involvement.
Brown’s Super Stores, the Westville, NJ based company that Brown heads, operates 10 ShopRite supermarkets in the Philadelphia area as well as maintaining a partnership with the Klein family on two other ShopRites – one in Parkville, MD and the other to open next year in the Howard Park area of Baltimore City. He is a fourth generation Philadelphia grocer and is the founder, president and CEO of the company which employs more than 2,300 associates who are committed to making a difference for their customers and the local community that they serve.
Many of Brown’s stores are situated in what were previously considered “food desert” areas, characterized by a lack of accessible, affordable, fresh and healthy food. Brown saw the potential for a public/private partnership in these locations, where, as he describes, “society was paying a lot for the neglected and poor, but could invest some money up-front and end up paying less overall.” Brown sought to overcome the financial challenge of operating stores in these areas and to work closely with community members to create stores that would be appealing and respond to community preferences.
While aiming to create profitable supermarkets, Brown’s steadfast dedication to community interests and social issues is also clear. When poised to open one of his newer stores inPhiladelphia, Brown made a concerted effort to invite as many community members as possible to a planning meeting; approximately 200 local leaders, including clergy, politicians and police attended. Brown describes the meeting, commenting “we started a dialogue, and people were skeptical because they’d been let down before and they didn’t trust guys like me. But I said I’d be honest with them, and people gave me a chance. It was clear that no one else was trying to solve the [food desert] problem.” Brown’s success at opening stores in food desert areas traditionally excluded from grocers’ prospective store sites has earned him national recognition. Visitors from across theU.S.seek to learn about and to replicate Brown’s approach for financing and operating stores in disadvantaged communities.
Brown’s interest in sharing his model for opening thriving supermarkets in underserved, food desert areas was the impetus behind creating a nonprofit, UpLift Solutions. UpLift was born from Brown’s realization that grocers nationwide could assume an important role in addressing food deserts, particularly if they could receive proper guidance and assistance. As he describes it, “I wasn’t interested in starting stores nationally, but I wanted to help others do this. So the nonprofit started because I realized I needed to train people to do my job elsewhere.”