Food Trade News

On June 5, Hanover, PA-based Utz Quality Foods, LLC and New York-based Collier Creek Holdings, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), announced they were merging in a $1.56 billion deal. The new company will be known as Utz Brands, Inc. and will become a publicly traded firm when the transaction is completed. Current Utz CEO Dylan Lissette, who has been with the family-owned company since 1995, will remain chief executive officer, a post he has held since 2013. Roger Deromedi, co-founder of Collier Creek, will become Chairman of the newly formed public company upon closing, which surpassed $1 billion in annual retail sales earlier this year. Deromedi, who spent his career in the food business, was formerly CEO of Kraft and Chairman of Pinnacle Foods. Utz will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year.

 Food World/Food Trade News: Congratulations to both of you. We have known Dylan for many years and the Rice family even longer. This seems to be a real win-win. I know Dylan has been to this dance at least once before. But this seems very visceral and positive. Obviously, with your background in the industry, Roger, this is a unique dynamic that I don’t think resembles any of the other potential walks down the aisle that Utz has had.

 Dylan Lissette: I like walking down the aisle knowing that Roger has helped create a great business with Pinnacle and I am excited to be partners with him.

Food World/Food Trade News: This is not going to help you based on your age Roger but by the end of a full day with Dylan, you will be worn out.

 Roger Deromedi: I think Dylan realizes that I keep up pretty well, don’t I, Dylan?

Dylan Lissette: It is actually really funny, I was talking to Cary Devore (Utz CFO) recently and I was like, “Roger really impresses me. The guy puts out work and in fact he is working as hard as me, if not harder”. I don’t give that compliment out to many. Many people know how hard I work, but it will be a good 1+1=3 with both of our brains working as hard as we both do.

Roger Deromedi: I agree. The timing is excellent. With my knowledge of the Pinnacle playbook and Dylan’s deep experience of the snack food category, it is going to be a great way to combine our skills. We have been talking about ways to execute our planned virtuous cycle of generating cost savings and reinvesting them back into the business to accelerate our growth. We are well under way and plan to make a difference in many ways.

Food World/Food Trade News: That’s great, and I actually have a question related to the Pinnacle history later on. Let me start at the beginning. When did the conversation between your two companies begin and how did it progress to the point leading up to the announcement?

 Dylan Lissette: Interestingly enough, I think I talked to Jason (Giordano, another co-founder of Collier Creek) well over a year ago. These guys had created their SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) and Jason and I knew each other from years back so he contacted us and said that they were interested. We continued to talk more over time. We ultimately met for lunch at BWI (Baltimore-Washington International airport). I got to know Roger a little bit more and we talked a lot about strategy – what we would do, how we would utilize the capital, and what we could generate if and when we ever combined into an entity that went public through the Collier Creek SPAC.

From there, as we got a little further in, we wondered what it would look like by comparing strategies – what was your strategy at Pinnacle, how would you look at our business, and what are ways that we could collectively improve Utz. We really want to grow. We envisioned what Utz, which is now a $1 billion dollar + business, would look like if it became $2 billion. Then, when it became a $2 billion business, what would we have to do to make it a $4 billion business. Both of us had these dreams that we could use this platform of fantastic brands to build upon. That conversation ensued over months and got more definitive over time. All along the way, we just got closer and closer on strategy and closer and closer on all of the administrative and financial aspects of the deal, and it ultimately made a lot of sense.

Roger Deromedi: That is a great synopsis and that is exactly how it all flowed and as you can imagine, we kept the lawyers very busy, because to get all of this stuff done, to create a public company out of a private company, takes a lot of work. Not only was there time spent on the alignment of strategy and how we are going to move ahead, but we were very focused on getting everything right in terms of how this is going to work going forward from a legal structure point of view. We are happy that we got all of that stuff figured out and you can see more of that in the proxy. We are making great progress.

Food World/Food Trade News: I think that the SPAC formula is interesting. You don’t have to do the traditional roadshow and go through that rollercoaster. You probably went through a different kind of internal rollercoaster to get to this point, but it is nice to know that all of that hard work in essence could lead to something where you essentially flip the switch and get going, rather than prolonged, delayed, often interrupted traditional process. Would you agree?

 Roger Deromedi: That is clearly one of the benefits of a SPAC. You have an agreement between the two parties that becomes what you market to the investors of our current public company which is what we have been doing after the announcement. With a SPAC process, vs. a traditional IPO, it is not that we don’t have to continue to tell investors what’s happening, we do. That is true of any public company. You are continuously doing that and obviously we had our investors in Collier Creek Holdings from the start almost two years ago. So, we had the cash, but we still have to convince them that they want to roll that cash into the CCH/Utz combination. Given the market reaction so far since announcement, I think that is not going to be an issue and we will get to closing in a couple of months. So, it is not that you don’t have to keep talking to investors, because they are one of your key stakeholders, but there is less uncertainty about valuation and so forth.

Food World/Food Trade News: Roger, can you draw parallels from your experience, at least in this early going, from when Pinnacle was set up to what you have experienced or newly learned from helping to construct this deal?

 Roger Deromedi: That is why we have told investors that Utz is a perfect fit for what we did at Pinnacle. But, actually, in the case of Utz we are actually at a much better starting point than where we started with Pinnacle, both in terms of having things in place to take advantage of but also in terms of the opportunities in front of us. When Blackstone acquired the company in 2007 and I was named Chairman, we started the cycle of going after productivity to then reinvest back in marketing, but there were not as many tools in place to help do that. Dylan and his team have done a great job setting up the company to really accelerate that productivity by establishing, for example, a working and effective project management office (PMO) and a soon-to-be-finished ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). So, we are in a much better place to start capturing the productivity savings to then reinvest back into marketing.

Then we start with the most important thing, which is that the salty snack category is a much better category than the various categories that we had at Pinnacle. When you have a category growing at four percent a year, that is a great category to be in. At Pinnacle, we had flat and declining categories. We had to use some of our marketing thinking to turn around frozen vegetables and to make Birds Eye a success. That takes a lot more effort and work than just capitalizing on the growth we have in a category and taking the great brands and riding that. I think Utz is a perfect fit for our playbook and it is a better starting point which we think will deliver even better results.

Food World/Food Trade News: Would you categorize at least some of the brands that Pinnacle acquired as spin-off brands from other major CPGs that those sellers no longer thought had a lot of growth?

 Roger Deromedi: We were very open about that. The tagline we used when we actually went public was ‘reinvigorating iconic brands’ and what that meant was iconic brands that were spun off from other companies. When you think about Duncan Hines, Vlasic, and Log Cabin, that is exactly what they were and the magic that Pinnacle did was take some of these brands that didn’t get needed attention and give them attention. That was the Pinnacle story, but that is a very different story than Utz. Utz has terrific brands in terms of the iconic brand Utz, along with Zapp’s, Golden Flake, Boulder Canyon, & Good Health to name a few. We have great brands to start with like the Utz brand which has been nurtured for a hundred years. It’s a different starting point.

Dylan Lissette: In terms of analogies between the two, and obviously, I wasn’t at Pinnacle, I really think of it as having, as you indicated, from a consumer perspective, from a trade perspective, a very well-loved brand, rooted in a hundred years of doing the right thing. It’s rooted in having a great quality product and having great quality people that bring it into the stores and work with our retail partners. I liken this combination more as the spark that lights the match. Imagine the little flame of the match going to the stick of dynamite that lights the rocket ship and then the rocket ship propels forward. It is the fuel that essentially goes into our next century of growth. So, here we are, we have accomplished much in a hundred years. We have done amazing things. We’ve got a billion plus dollars in retail sales. We did it doing the right things with our community, with our associates, with our customers, and with our consumers. All of that and now we are turning this corner into becoming a public company, lighting that match, letting the wick burn and then, ‘Boom!’ Upon closing we really have that fuel set up to just accelerate, because we did so much work in terms of acquiring businesses, integrating them on to our platform, unifying ERP systems and back ends, and cultures, and policies and distribution.

When you think about our acquisitions from the most recent of ConAgra’s DSD snack business to Golden Flake (which at the time was a very big acquisition for us), all the way back to Zapp’s in 2011, we have done a lot of work over these past 10 or 11 years to build a national platform, to build a billion dollars’ worth of core business. And now, along with the capital that comes onto the balance sheet, think about the synergy of minds and strategies and policies and whatnot that a combination of a great board, and a great team, can do to our platform. Someone asked me the other day what companies you would aspire to be. I really didn’t have a great answer, but I thought about companies like Smucker’s, I thought about companies like Sam Adams, as an example, the beer company. We are really looking forward to the next hundred years and what that may look like for the company.

Food World/Food Trade News: With more potential capital to work with and the reduction of debt under the old privately held structure, do you have any specific acquisitions or targeted areas that you feel that you can now better pursue?

 Dylan Lissette: I’d say that I am motivated by growth of our brands and our company. One, because it obviously gives us scale and relevance with an ever-consolidating customer base. You Jeff, as well as anybody, know that the customer base is consolidating. The more that we have a great brand portfolio, the more that we have a great distribution network that is geographically large and diverse, the more talented we are in terms of consumer insight and innovation, all of those things that come with growth, the better off we are not to just survive but to thrive which is a key word that we use a lot here at Utz. So, yes, the capital comes on and reduces the debt and puts us into a great position.

I think looking for M&A opportunities that expand our geographic reach or expand our brand portfolio into subcategories that we are not meaningfully in or gives us greater exposure to certain channels where we might be a little bit under-penetrated such as C-store and Mass – There are all kinds of opportunities, adjacent categories, some of these smaller BFY (better for you) brands that may resonate very well with the consumer, but don’t have a platform of warehousing, logistics, sales team, distribution, marketing – all of the things we have would do well for us.

If you think about it, we are really the only stand-alone pure-play snacking platform in the United States of scale. As a public company we will be well poised to be the potential consolidator of choice. We are good at it; our team ultimately is good at it: from sourcing to integrating and really that is a fine art because it is not just a financial integration. It is a cultural, strategic, brand portfolio integration when you do these. This isn’t just bolting it on. It is backend systems, it is culture, it is leadership, it is people, it is communication. It is all of those things that go into a successful integration. I think we are really good at it. I think we can look forward to M&A being one of the core platforms of growth for the company.

Roger Deromedi: Dylan, I don’t know what to add other than to say that you are not just good at it, you are really good at it. Acquisitions are an important part of our go forward story and obviously now we have the balance sheet that gives us room to do that. After this transaction, we will be down to 3.1x debt-to-EBITDA and barring any acquisitions, we improve that by about a half a turn a year. So we have plenty of fire power to make future acquisitions.

Food World/Food Trade News: You have done a lot of deals in you long career; Roger is there any area from your purview that might differ from Dylan’s previous growth direction? From not the up close and personal view that Dylan has with day-to-day matters, but more as an objective analyst?

 Roger Deromedi: No, we have been working in alignment in terms of our M&A strategy focusing on branded snacks in the U.S., and more specifically salted snacks. As Dylan said, there are opportunities for further geographic expansion, increasing our presence in some subcategories of the overall salty snacks where we don’t have as strong a presence. So, we are very much aligned with where those opportunities are. What we love about the salty snack category is that there are so many targets that you can go after. It is a very robust list. Some smaller ones, but also larger ones that could be transformative. With being a public company, we have equity and we have room to do a wide range of acquisitions. We are very much aligned in what they are. I don’t have a different list than Dylan. We have the same list.

Dylan Lissette: What is interesting is what I truly believe, beyond our core competencies….I personally have been in the industry, many on our team have been going to snack food conventions for 24 years. My in-laws have been going for 45 plus years probably. My wife remembers being seven years old and being at regional snack food meetings decades ago. So, we have been very involved in the industry. We know a lot of the players. We are very communicative. So, we think that also helps us to sort of look at the pipeline, know who some of the folks are, have a great dialogue with them and ultimately, when and if it ever makes sense for some type of a combination or what not we are in a great place to execute on that if they are so willing.

A great example – we acquired Kitchen Cooked in December of 2019. Kitchen Cooked was in the selling family’s ownership for decades, and their president, their owner, a member of the family is still with us today, six plus months later. We talk all of the time. We are growing his sales in Illinois, in his route system. He is selling more of his product. He is selling more of our product. We presume he is very happy with the leadership and the communication and all of those things. Ultimately, you just have to really be good at what you do, but also set it up so that people’s knowledge of you as an acquirer is predicated on your past experience with others. You live by the reputation you create. And I think we have a good reputation as well, which helps.

Food World/Food Trade News: I will ask you this next question Dylan, because it has been asked of me in the last few days: even though this may not have been your first priority, do you see this move as a potential long-term exit strategy for the Rice and the Lissette families?

 Dylan Lissette: Obviously, it opens up more optionality with a publicly traded stock. I am 48 years old. I have a lot of juice left and passion for the business. I love the business. I love the people. I actually couldn’t imagine going down a different path than doing this merger with Collier in which the family sold a very small share of our equity stake, basically to make the math and the deal and the share counts work. We are retaining a massive amount of equity in the new company. We will be the 50 plus percent shareholder owners of it. With the partnership between Collier and with public stockholders, I look forward to just continuing to build Utz as we have. With a very long-term oriented, compound growth-oriented type of mentality.

I think if we wanted to exit, we would have looked at a different outcome. I know my father-in-law is really excited about this. If you can imagine when his grandparents, in 1921, started the business with a 50 pound an hour cooker in Hanover, PA, and you think of how far we’ve come, through the efforts of so many before us, it is amazing.  It’s amazing that we broke all odds relative to a family business, which most never make it to the third or fourth generation, let alone fourth to fifth generation. The numbers are extremely low. I think it is 3 percent from third to fourth. So for my father-in-law, I think he is very excited to sit on the precipice of a new day and looks forward to beginning the journey of becoming an iconic food company and becoming possibly a multi-billion dollar CPG company that delivers for our shareholders by creating value, that provides snacks for consumers, and that supports all stakeholders and our community. I think this merger is fantastic for the Hanover community, because this is the community that got us here and this helps to solidify for years to come. Hanover will be the headquarters and the mecca for our operational base. So, I think it is really exciting overall.

Roger Deromedi: We look forward to holding our board meetings in Hanover.

Food World/Food Trade News: Roger, what will your role be as chairman of this new organization? How do you envision that?

 Roger Deromedi: My role is actually very simple. My role is to support Dylan and his management team and help him and help them make the company successful. It is as simple as that. Obviously, I oversee the board and corporate governance, but from a personal perspective, I will be helping Dylan in whatever ways he wants me to.

Food World/Food Trade News: And Collier Creek is two years old, approximately?

 Roger Deromedi: It is 18 months old. We started in October 2018. When we close this transaction in August or September, Collier Creek goes away and the new company going forward will be called Utz Brands, which will be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under UTZ.

Food World/Food Trade News: I have asked the questions that I want to ask. If you would like to add anything that you think might be germane or interesting for our readers, now is the time to freelance a little.

Roger Deromedi:  Obviously, there is the investor perspective about this transaction, but from a retail customer and consumer perspective, they should feel very good about it as well. I think it is going to create opportunities for Utz to get even bigger and stronger in the industry and support the growth of the salty snack category for our retailers.

Dylan Lissette: When I think about our customers, the SVPs, the category managers, the CEOs, the buyers, that are reading this article and going, ‘Uh-oh, what does this mean?’, it is just naturally the reaction. ‘What does this mean to me? What does it mean to my organization?’ And I wholeheartedly agree with Roger that a lot of our success has been achieved by conservatively picking our spots to spend our capital. The industry average advertising spending for brands like ours is about 4 percent. We’re spending about 1 percent to promote the Utz brands. If you think about the fact that with the new capital, and new talent to help guide the strategy, both from Roger and also other skilled board members, we can improve in many areas. For example, our board has broader knowledge of things like marketing. This should only be a positive for our retail customers to see this news. This allows us to become a better innovator, a better marketer – a better overall opportunity to lean in more for our customers.

So, I think this should be taken away as an amazing thing for Utz to do. To get here after 100 years. How many brands are able to say that they made it to 100 years, a billion dollars, then went public and continued to grow. This is exciting!

Food World/Food Trade News: Absolutely. Congratulations to you both.

Stop & Shop and King Kullen announced June 10 that they have terminated their merger agreement through which Stop & Shop was to acquire King Kullen. A joint decision was made not to proceed with the acquisition because of significant, unforeseen changes in the marketplace that have emerged since the agreement was signed in December 2018, largely driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Both companies have put forth an incredible amount of effort to work through unanticipated challenges that have arisen, and we regret that we’re not able to move forward. King Kullen has a strong legacy on the island, and we wish them continued success,” said Gordon Reid, president of Stop & Shop. “Stop & Shop remains committed to the Long Island community, to serving our customers in the market well, and to investing in our associates and our stores in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.”

Brian Cullen, co-president of King Kullen, stated, “We look forward to continuing to focus on what we do best — serving our great customers across Long Island and supporting our hard-working store associates. We are enthusiastic about the future and well-positioned to serve Nassau and Suffolk Counties for many years to come. In short, we are here for the long term.”

However, multiple sources have told us that the role of the Federal Trade Commission, which reportedly sought to force Stop & Shop to divest more stores than the company had originally intended (due to anti-competitive concerns), was a factor in the final decision.

In a memo to the trade, SVP and chief merchandising officer for King Kullen Joe Brown said, “As you may be aware, King Kullen has decided not to sell our company. Our public statements address all that is needed in regard to our decision to remain in business as a family and management owned company for the foreseeable future.” He continued, “The intent of this memo is to directly inform our vendor partners of our intent to build and strengthen the equity of the King Kullen brand. We understand that it is no longer ‘business as usual,’ it is something far different than that. Along with the technological, cultural, and social changes we see from consumers, we see our need for internal structural and cultural changes in our approach to how we run our business.”

The deal, originally announced by Ahold Delhaize in early January 2019, was for Stop & Shop, its largest brand in the United States, to acquire King Kullen’s 37 Long Island stores, which included 32 King Kullen supermarkets and five Wild By Nature units, as well as its corporate offices located in Bethpage, NY.

The news came as a bit of a surprise as a memo from King Kullen emerged in April indicating that the deal would close by the end of the month.

The company’s internal memo, which was issued on April 17 and referenced a prior memo from March 13, stated: “In our memorandum to you dated March 13, 2020 we advised you that the merger agreement between King Kullen and Stop and Shop had been extended to April 17, 2020 in order to resolve some outstanding issues which would allow us to complete the FTC approval process.

“Those issues have been largely resolved, and now final negotiations with the FTC toward completion of the approval process have begun. At the same time, however, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on supermarket operations in our region, raising issues that need to be considered carefully between Stop & Shop and King Kullen so that we can complete this merger successfully. Accordingly, the parties have agreed to amend, and have amended, the merger agreement to call for an outside completion date of April 30, 2020. This additional time will give representatives of both parties the opportunity to meet and begin to develop and implement a plan to coordinate the merger from an operations standpoint in consideration of these COVID-19 related issues.

“Stop & Shop continues to express enthusiasm about completing the merger. We are confident that with that commitment, and the diligence of both the Stop & Shop and King Kullen teams, we will meet this new challenge presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and complete this merger successfully.”

Additionally, as recently as May 7 at the Ahold Delhaize annual general shareholders meeting, CEO Frans Muller said his company expected to finalize the deal in the second half of 2020.

In Food Trade News’ 2020 market study, to be published June 29, Stop & Shop remains the share of market leader on Long Island with 52 stores, claiming 21.33 percent of all channel food and drug business in the $10.5 billion market. King Kullen, which has shuttered two stores since the deal with Stop & Shop was originally announced, continues to lose share in an area where competitive activity over the past three years has been volatile. The Bethpage, NY-family-owned regional chain ranks number five on Long Island with 6.48 percent of the all-channel food and drug business in the two-county market.

“I’m not surprised by this announcement,” said a senior VP for a food broker based in the Metro New York area who calls on King Kullen. “This soap opera has gone on for far too long and it’s adversely affected the culture and the momentum of the Kullen organization. It’s going to be challenging to restart their engine. As for Stop & Shop, whether it was COVID-related, or became an FTC problem that they couldn’t overcome, or the fact their parent firm Ahold Delhaize USA just agreed to acquire 62 Bi-Lo and Harvey’s Supermarkets and a distribution center from Southeastern Grocers, they seemed ready to move on.”

Utz Quality Foods, the Hanover, PA-based manufacturer of salty snacks, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Collier Creek Holdings to combine and form Utz Brands, Inc. It is expected that the newly combined company, which will be a leading pure-play snack food platform in the U.S., will trade under the ticker symbol “Utz” on the New York Stock Exchange once the transaction is completed in the third quarter of 2020.

Dylan Lissette, who first joined Utz in 1995 and has served the snack firm’s CEO since 2013, will continue to serve in that role to lead the business along with the existing management team. Roger Deromedi, former chairman of Pinnacle Foods and ex-Kraft Foods CEO will become chairman of Utz Brands. Deromedi co-founded the Manhattan based “blank check” investment firm along with Chinh Chu and Jason Giordano in 2018.

Utz Brands will remain headquartered in Hanover.

Proceeds from the transaction are expected to be used primarily to repay existing borrowings at Utz. The Rice and Lissette family, the founding family and owners of Utz, will retain more than 90 percent of its existing equity stake, which will represent more than 50 percent ownership in Utz Brands upon completion of the transaction.

The remaining ownership will be held by the public shareholders and sponsor of Collier Creek. In connection with the transaction, Collier Creek’s sponsor and directors will invest approximately $35 million alongside public investors via a private placement pursuant to the forward purchase agreements entered into concurrent with Collier Creek’s initial public offering. Collier Creek will become a Delaware corporation and the name of Collier Creek will be changed to Utz Brands, Inc. In addition

Assuming no redemptions by the public shareholders of Collier Creek, the approximately $453 million in cash held in Collier Creek’s trust account, together with the $35 million private placement, will be used to pay cash consideration to the current Utz owners, pay transaction expenses, and reduce the Company’s existing indebtedness to approximately 3.1x estimated 2020 Pro Forma Adjusted EBITDA.

The transaction will be structured as an entity called an “Up-C” where the continuing Utz owners will retain common units of a partnership managed by Utz Brands and an equal number of non-economic voting shares in Utz Brands. Utz Brands will also enter into a customary tax receivable arrangement with continuing Utz owners, which will provide for the sharing of tax benefits relating to certain pre-combination tax attributes, as well as tax attributes generated by the transaction and any subsequent sales or exchanges by the continuing Utz owners of their equity interests, as those attributes are realized by Utz Brands.

Utz has been expanding rapidly over the past decade, acquiring other snack food companies as well as manufacturing plants and distribution centers. In 2009, the company was close to merging with rival Snyder’s of Hanover (now Snyder’s-Lance, a division of Campbell’s). In October 2016, it sold a minority stake to private equity firm Metropoulos & Co to help with the acquisition of Golden Flake Foods, a large snack food manufacturer based in Birmingham, AL.  Fifteen months later, Utz reacquired those shares.

Food Lion, a division of Ahold Delhaize USA (ADUSA), announced on June 3 that it has reached agreement with Southeastern Grocers (SEG) to purchase 62 Bi-Lo/Harveys supermarkets (46 Bi-Los and 16 Harvey’s units) in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The stores will remain open as Bi-Lo and Harveys Supermarkets until the transaction is complete, which is expected to take place over a staggered period from January to April 2021, pending regulatory approval and customary closing requirements. The deal also includes Bi-Lo’s primary distribution center in Mauldin, SC which will supply the acquired stores. Food Lion said it hopes to hire approximately 4,650 associates when the acquisition is completed. Financial terms of the transaction were not released.

When the deal is completed, parent company SEG will operate 61 Bi-Lo units in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida and 30 Harveys Supermarkets in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.

“We are so excited to add these new locations to our more than 630 stores across Georgia and the Carolinas,” said Food Lion president Meg Ham. “We’ve been serving customers in these larger regions for almost 60 years. We’re thrilled to add these locations and serve even more towns and cities across these three states with fresh, quality products at affordable prices every day with the caring, friendly service customers expect from their local Food Lion.”

With the acquisition, Food Lion will operate nearly 1,100 stores from Pennsylvania to Florida which will employ more than 80,000 associates.

For Southeastern Grocers, which is led by former Giant Food president Anthony Hucker, the move allows the Jacksonville, FL-based retailer to place more focus on its five-year growth plan. SEG, which entered bankruptcy in March 2018 and emerged from its Chapter 11 status two months later, said it will now focus on its Winn-Dixie, Fresco y Más and remaining Harveys stores. It added that it is also actively exploring strategic options for the rest of Bi-Lo’s stores, including other potential transactions.

Separately, SEG is also divesting the assets of 57 of the in-store pharmacies it operates under the Bi-Lo and Harveys Supermarket banners to CVS and Walgreens. These locations, which include all of the retailer’s Bi-Lo pharmacies and nine Harveys Supermarket pharmacies in Georgia, will begin to transition within the next two weeks. During this process, SEG said it will seek to minimize any interruption to customers and to ensure the smooth transition of their prescriptions.

CEO Hucker stated: “The successful execution of our long-term transformation strategy may at times require difficult decisions. Today’s transactions are a critical strategic move and an important next step for our continued growth and broader evolution as a business. These actions will facilitate greater investment in our remaining footprint so we can continue to provide an exceptional shopping experience our customers can always count on.”

Southeastern Grocers also noted that these transactions build on previous announcements made by the company such as the opening of a new store earlier this year and the acquisition of eight new store locations from Lucky’s Market and Earth Fare – as part of its business transformation strategy to strengthen its overall performance in an increasingly competitive sector.

Daryl Thomas, Herr’s senior vice president of sales, is transitioning to senior vice president of strategic opportunities.  He will also retain the title of senior advisor to the CEO.

Herr’s has created this new role to dedicate more focus to on exploring new strategic business opportunities, deepening relationships with key customers and business partners, and further enhancing the company’s government and industry relations efforts

“We are very excited that Daryl will be leading these important activities for us,” said a statement announcing the change.  “He will also continue to mentor Herr’s family members as the company continues to transition leadership to the third generation. Herr’s proudly celebrates our 75th anniversary next year and remains committed to delivering high quality, innovative products that meet our customers’ evolving needs while providing consumers with exciting, new, snacking opportunities.”

The board of directors of Philabundance, the 35-year-old nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger in the Delaware Valley, has announced the selection of Loree D. Jones as chief executive officer, succeeding Glenn Bergman, who left the organization at the end of March after a successful tenure as executive director. Jones will begin her new position on June 2.

Jones, most recently the chief of staff to the chancellor of Rutgers University-Camden, has served in leadership positions in nonprofit organizations, education and city government throughout her career. Prior to her service at Rutgers, Jones was chief of external affairs for the School District of Philadelphia, coordinating strategic communications and governmental affairs for the nation’s eighth largest school district and managing advocacy efforts with external partners. She also served as managing director for the City of Philadelphia in the John Street administration, overseeing 16 operating departments and offices with close to 20,000 employees and a $3.2 billion operating budget.

Her extensive nonprofit experience includes serving as co-executive director of City Year Greater Philadelphia, an educational nonprofit that deploys young leaders for a year of service as tutors and mentors to public school students, and as executive director of the African Studies Association (ASA), the largest scholarly association for the study of Africa in the world. She currently serves on multiple nonprofit boards of directors, including the Philadelphia Health Partnership, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the Independence Foundation.

“Philabundance has been a long-time leader in the fight against food insecurity for our region’s most vulnerable citizens. I’m honored to join this organization of passionate and talented professionals and its forward-looking board of directors,” Jones said.  “We have both opportunities and challenges ahead of us, but we are uniquely positioned to garner growing support, partner with public and private organizations and continue to innovate while increasing our positive impact for those in need.”

Philabundance has long played a critical role in distributing food to those who have the greatest needs, delivering nearly 30 million pounds of food to help more than 700,000 people throughout nine counties in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey who struggle with food insecurity. Many of those citizens were already facing hunger issues because of the region’s high poverty rate; that number has rapidly increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Philabundance has remained open throughout the pandemic, increasing its efforts to ensure that no one in our communities lacks access to food – especially healthy food that can improve wellness and quality of life.

Jones added: “We must address the immediate needs of Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey and prepare Philabundance to serve as a resource and partner during the post-COVID rebuilding period and in the years to come.”

ASG has announced the promotions of Francisco Nieves to vice president of sales and Michelle Mendoza to vice president of marketing and customer experience.

Nieves has more than 23 years of experience in the industry and joined ASG in 2017, as senior director of sales where he focused on securing new store opportunities and growing existing stores’ sales.

This promotion recognizes Nieves’ leading role in growing the company’s sales and his efforts coaching his team to elevate their level of performance and service to ASG’s customers.

He will continue to report to Wiscovitch as the company strives to increase sales while improving its value proposition to customers.

Mendoza joined the company in June of 2016, with more than 10 years of marketing experience. This promotion recognizes her many contributions to ASG, especially her role in rising the profile of our core banners Associated, Compare, Met Foods and Pioneer, the development of the company’s house brand Avenue A, the implementation of its marketing initiatives and the improvements of its customer experience department.

She will continue to report to Zulema Wiscovitch, EVP and CAO, as she leads the company’s marketing, communications and customer experience initiatives to position ASG and its brands as an integral part of our success.

Wakefern Food Corp., the Keasbey, NJ-based wholesaler, has promoted Laura Kind to VP-brand strategy and announced that Ranjana Choudhry has joined the large cooperative as VP-advertising and social media.

Kind joined Wakefern in December 2018 as director of own brands marketing and packaging. Wakefern said he was pivotal in driving the successful design, positioning and launch of the company’s newest “own brand” offerings, Bowl & Basket and Paperbird.
In her new role, Kind will oversee strategic brand management for the ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Dearborn Market and Gourmet Garage banners, and work to uniquely differentiate these banners in the marketplace, shape the brand identities and ensure connectivity in all customer facing initiatives.

Prior to joining Wakefern, Kind was director of brands at Jet.com, the Walmart-owned e-commerce company, where she helped build the company’s private label brand. She has also held marketing leadership roles at Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Kind has a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.
Choudhry joined Wakefern in March and brings more than 25 years of experience as a global marketing and communications executive to her new role at the wholesaler. She will lead the company’s advertising and social media divisions to develop marketing and digital content strategies that harness the brands’ promotions, and also introduce fresh, new campaigns across advertising and digital channels.

Choudhry began her career with Grey Advertising, a global marketing communications agency. She relocated to New York while working for WPP, a multinational advertising agency where she led more than 400 team members in 220 countries across Asia, India, Africa, Eurasia, Europe, Latin America and North America for Colgate-Palmolive’s brands. Choudhry has a master’s degree in philosophy of advertising from Delhi School of Economics and a master of commerce in marketing from Shri Ram College of Commerce in India. She completed her bachelor of commerce degree from Jesus & Mary College, also in India.

After 10 months as interim president of Giant Food, parent firm Ahold Delhaize USA (ADUSA) has removed the “temporary” tag and named the 36-year veteran of the Landover, MD-based chain president.

After taking the day-to-day helm of the ADUSA regional “brand” in July 2019, following the promotion of former Giant president Gordon Reid to run sister retailer Stop & Shop, Kress continued to advance his people-oriented skill set to another level as the leader of more than 20,000 associates at Giant’s 164 stores in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Washington. DC.

Those skills were never better demonstrated than by two events which have recently occurred on Kress’ watch. In early March, after prolonged and difficult labor negotiations, Giant and UFCW Locals 400 and 27 agreed to new four-year contracts covering the company’s clerks and meatcutters. Adding a fourth year to the agreement was a key component (virtually all previous pacts had been three years in length), but more importantly the new labor deal finally created a plan that would help offset the more than $1.1 billion unfunded pension liability that faced Giant (and Safeway) and the two Maryland-based labor unions.

Less than a week later, the rapid spread of the coronavirus created new government-mandated policies which virtually locked down all non-essential activity in Giant’s operating territory. As food stores remained open as essential businesses, consumers flocked to purchase and stock up on groceries creating intense pressure to protect the safety of store associates. Throughout the process, Giant’s clerks and meatcutters, like most grocery merchants, persevered and shined during extremely challenging situations

“It’s been an honor and privilege to lead Giant Food, especially during this time when our customers and communities have never needed us more. I’m honored to continue in the role and am incredibly appreciative of our associates who serve our customers with excellence every day. I look forward to continuing to grow the Giant Food brand in our communities,” Kress said

In addition to his previous role as senior VP-operations, Kress has served many different roles for the Baltimore-Washington market’s leading grocery chain. He began working in the stores in 1984 and has served in a variety of leadership roles in retail operations, human resources, training and labor relations.

Kress is also active in the community and serves as a board member on the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Oncology Advisory Council and the Ahold Delhaize USA Family Foundation.

“Ira has been a dedicated leader for Giant Food for 36 years and we are proud to appoint him to this role,” said Kevin Holt, president, Ahold Delhaize USA. “Ira has been serving as interim president of Giant Food since last summer, and he has continued to lead the brand with success. He is an excellent leader, with a strong focus on serving customers, engaging associates and supporting local communities. During his role as interim president, Ira has continued to successfully grow sales, market share and build strong associate engagement during an unprecedented time for our industry.”