David Green and Melvin Shapiro, co-owners of D&M Management Services which operates 10 Save-A-Lot discount stores in Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, have been chosen to receive the “Pete Manos Retail Executive of the Year,” the publishers of Food World and Food Trade News announced November 8 at the Maryland Retailers Association’s annual Hall of Fame Breakfast in Baltimore, MD.
David Green and Melvin Shapiro were literally born into the grocery business, having followed their family lineages.
In Green’s case that was Baltimore wholesaler B. Green & Co., which was founded in 1915. He began working at the company’s warehouse while still a teenager and after college he joined B. Green on a full-time basis. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s Green worked in virtually every aspect of the wholesaler’s business. In the mid-1980s David joined his mother Hanna to supervise the company’s burgeoning military business. He left B. Green a few years before it was sold in 1994 to operate a grocery store in Baltimore City. In 1994, he began working with Melvin Shapiro and two years later, the duo formed a formal partnership and opened their first Save-A-Lot store in Hancock, MD
Shapiro also began his career in his family’s business – Baltimore-based independent Food Town. In 1979 his father Leo, a Holocaust survivor, died tragically. It was Leo and his brother, Philip who began the business after World War II after immigrating from Poland to the United States. At that point, Melvin and his two brothers began to take a more active role in the business which at one point grew to 15 stores and operated in both the Baltimore and Washington markets. However, by the late 1980s, Food Town had downsized, and Shapiro operated the only remaining Food Town on Broadway in Baltimore.
Shapiro and Green had known each other for most of their lives and had been personal friends for many years. By the mid-1990s, the grocery business was changing, and the two friends were in a position to reinvent themselves and create a new path. With the talent and passion each possessed, 22 years later D&M Management Services has flourished and now is the leading Save-A-lot licensee in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The “Pete Manos” award was first presented to the late Giant food chairman and chief executive upon his retirement in 1999. and was subsequently named after him. Manos, the former chairman and CEO of Giant Food Inc., 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.
Previous winners include: Danny Wegman, Wegmans; the late Robert Weis, Weis Markets; Carl Schlicker, Ahold USA; Fred Morganthall, Harris Teeter; Jeff Brown, Brown’s ShopRites; Bill White, Shoppers; Bobby Ukrop, Ukrop’s; Ron Dennis, Farm Fresh; Benjy Green, B. Green; Jim Perkins, Albertsons; Jim McCaffrey III, McCaffrey’s Markets; and Kurt Schertle, Weis Markets.
The Manos award presentation followed the induction of the 2018 class into the Maryland Food Industry Hall of Fame. This year’s food industry inductees included: Sandy Banthem, Bel Garden Bi-Rite Supermarket; Elda Devarie, EMD Sales; the late George Mezardash, Little George’s/Trout Food Market; Jim Perdue, Perdue Farms; and Paul Saval, Saval Foods.