Wakefern Food Corp. recently announced the appointment of Mark Van Buskirk as group vice president (GVP) of fresh.
“We are excited to welcome Mark to our leadership team at Wakefern,” said Darren Caudill, chief sales officer. “High quality fresh offerings have always been at the heart of the customer supermarket experience – and we know Mark’s expertise and leadership will help us continue to grow these categories and take fresh to the next level.”
In his new position, Van Buskirk will oversee Wakefern’s fresh food divisions, including appetizers/foodservice, bakery, meat, seafood, produce and floral, ensuring the cooperative’s high standards while helping grow fresh food categories for stores.
Van Buskirk brings more than 35 years of expertise in marketing, sales, operations and private brand development for supermarket and convenience chains. He most recently served as senior vice president of merchandising and marketing for The Save Mart Companies, based in Modesto, CA. As a member of the executive leadership team, he was responsible for overseeing the corporate merchandising and procurement teams, as well as leading efforts in strategic and financial planning, merchandising analytics and shopper insights.
Prior to that role, Van Buskirk worked at Jacksons Food Stores, a convenience store outlet with more than 300 locations in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, California and Utah. Serving as vice president of marketing and merchandising, he led teams that successfully leveraged consumer data and insights to create strategic plans that boosted the company’s market share.
At Albertsons Companies, Inc., he presided as group vice president of merchandising for grocery, frozen, dairy and liquor, and was responsible for corporate merchandising teams, strategic planning, procurement, and shopper analytics and insights.
Earlier in his career, Van Buskirk served as executive vice president of merchandising, marketing and corporate retail and private brands at Supervalu. There he developed and led operations and sales teams for Cub Foods, Hornbacher’s Shoppers, Shop n’ Save and Farm Fresh and grew annual sales to over $4.7 billion. He also oversaw the private brand teams, managing a diverse portfolio of products, servicing the company’s retail banners and 1,900 independent wholesale customers.
Matt Avallone has joined RDD Associates as director of sales and Wakefern customer team leader. Matt has more than a decade of retail grocery merchandising and CPG field sales experience, focusing on the Metro New York marketplace, having worked in a broad variety of roles to include procurement, category management, digital commerce, shopper marketing and field sales. He will join the RDD leadership team and will report to Bob Weinmann, president of the company.
In addition to directing RDD’s coverage team at Wakefern, Avallone will be responsible for managing the account manager group, who provide comprehensive coverage for the independent chains, retail co-ops and member buying groups. In his role as Wakefern team leader, he will interface with Wakefern’s merchandising, procurement, marketing and field support operations, to facilitate expert activation of client manufacturers’ sales and customer marketing agendas. In addition, he will work across the entire RDD enterprise (leadership, business management, account management, retail management/ supervision, marketing/ analytics, customer services and administration), to effectively align, organize, mobilize, prioritize, and deploy resources to support this customer-directed effort.
JOH recently announced the promotion of Paul McGee to the position of director-Mid-Atlantic Region.
McGee has more 35 years of experience in the food industry holding various roles in wholesale, retail, manufacturing, sales and operations.
Since joining JOH as an account manager in 2017, McGee has managed the JOH business at several Mid-Atlantic customers, as well as being the account executive for multiple clients. In his new role as director, he will continue to call on customer accounts, be involved with various clients as well as take on an increased role in financial budgeting, planning and management within the division.
“Paul is a natural leader and well-respected in the industry. His years of experience and dedication to JOH make him the perfect choice for this position,” said Pete Legambi, EVP, Mid-Atlantic Region. “Congratulations on this well-deserved promotion!”
Jeff Sheets has joined Affinity Group as its director of produce on the team led by Bob McGowan. Sheets will cover the Mid-Atlantic market for the broker and will report to Dan McShain.
Sheets joins Affinity with nearly 30 years of experience in the brokerage industry. Throughout his career he has been recognized for exception performance, winning broker of the year awards from companies such as Ken’s Foods, Stock Pot and Nestle.
Reading Bakery Systems has appointed Denise Siegle as its chief financial officer. In her new role, She will oversee all accounting and finance functions, lead the growth and development of the accounting team, and support the RBS leadership to achieve both strategic and operational goals.
“Denise comes to us with a great deal of experience in accounting and finance within industrial manufacturing, and we are excited to have her on board. She will be a great asset to both our leadership and accounting teams,” said Chip Czulada, president of Reading Bakery Systems.
Siegle is a senior finance professional with more than 30 years of experience with prominent industrial manufacturing companies, including SPX, AkzoNobel and most recently Greene Tweed. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Shippensburg University.
The New Jersey Food Council (NJFC) recently named six new members to its board of directors: Ryan Auld, Perry J. Blatt, Kevin Cuff, Rich Gingo, Jim Gunning and Jim Mullen.
Auld, a senior customer executive with Bimbo Bakeries USA, began his food industry career with Mondelez International as a merchandiser in the Baltimore/Washington DC Area. In 2017, he joined Bimbo Bakeries USA as a market sales leader.
Blatt, director of ecommerce and business development for Village Supermarkets, oversees all corporate giving, community outreach programs and is president of the Sumas Family Foundation. He has held many supervisory positions in the company in operations, merchandising, marketing and corporate communications.
Cuff, store operations district manager and VP of Wegmans Food Markets, has 27 years of experience. He began working at Wegmans in high school as a cashier in Syracuse, NY. He moved to New Jersey, where he took on several roles in store operations, including opening the first Wegmans location in New York City in his role as store manager.
Gingo, a sales team leader at Advantage Solutions, has more than 31 years of experience. He began his career at Revlon, working a summer job then transitioned to the broker side, gaining experience with ABD Sales, Food Enterprises, Marketing Specialists, and Acosta. For the past 13 years, he has been with Advantage Solutions and now serves as Sales Team Leader for the perishables division.
Gunning, manager of business development for UNFI, is responsible for activities across 11 distribution centers, spanning nine states and the District of Columbia. Gunning is proud to have been in the food industry his entire career. He served as a board member of the Mid-Atlantic Frozen Food Association.
Mullen, VP of operations at Stop & Shop Supermarkets, began his food industry career with Acme Markets in Philadelphia and has had leadership roles in operations, merchandising and ecommerce. Mullen also served four years in the United States Marine Corps, promoted to sergeant while serving in Operation Desert Storm. He received the Navy Achievement Medal. Mullen is also a former president and board member for the Mid-Atlantic Food Trades Organization.
