Dipping our toe in the podcast pool, the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association (PFMA) launched Shelf Confidence this summer, and we recently wrapped our first 10-episode season.
The podcast provided the association with a new platform to highlight food retail trends and innovations from our members and sponsors. Food retailers have experienced a surge in growth and change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Shelf Confidence created a new channel to talk about the innovations that followed.
We released a new episode every other Wednesday morning, as podcast host Liz Kemmery interviewed PFMA members and sponsors about trending topics in the food and beverage retail industry.
Several episodes highlighted sustainability, which remains a focus in food retail. In the first episode, Jessica Groves of The GIANT company shared their environmental initiatives and how it impacts the community. Later in the season, Stephen Sinnott and Brian Norcross of Stephen Gould Corporation discussed sustainable packaging solutions, covering everything from materials to cost to supply chain to branding. In episode 10, Cheryl Hefft and Samantha McKeough from our PFMA partner World Kinect Energy Services talked about building a successful sustainability strategy for your business.
As we know, many trends changed or emerged due to the pandemic. Andrea Karns of Karns Quality Foods addressed the growing popularity of home meal kits, and later Seth Weaver of Weaver’s of Wellsville tackled shifts in product demand because of the pandemic. In episode 4, Sandy Brown of Brown’s Super Stores, shared how they worked with the City of Philadelphia and other community partners to help vaccinate Philly.
Other episodes featured tackling food waste with Country Fair, reframing healthy snacking with Utz, exploring children’s health and nutrition with Wegmans and training retailers to prevent gift card scams with the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities.
These interviews illustrated the excitement and challenges that our PFMA members experienced while facing evolution and change in the food retail industry.
If you missed it, check out the podcast at pfma.org/videos-and-podcasts, or listen and subscribe to Shelf Confidence on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcast.
We’re grateful to all of our members and sponsors who participated in our first season! Season 2 will launch mid-January.
PFMA represents more than 800 members representing convenience stores, supermarkets, independent grocers, wholesalers, consumer product vendors, national and regional chain stores and locally owned independent retailers of all sizes operating in Pennsylvania.