Live from N.G.A.'s annual convention in Las Vegas

In This Issue

Tom Brokaw: Time for "the next great generation"

How Whole Foods makes $900 per square foot

Got a food question? Ask a farmer!

Ideas to keep shoppers coming back

New movie about bagging champs

Woman Grocer of the Year; New Board

Looking ahead to 2010

Miss the convention? Get the information

Give us your feedback

OPENING KEYNOTE

The Time to Lead is Now, Keynote Speaker Tom Brokaw tells N.G.A. Convention. And Who Better to Lead than Independents?

The last eight years have been difficult, as America has struggled to "discover who we are once again," former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw told attendees at the 2009 N.G.A. conference opening keynote ceremony. Today, Brokaw said, we find ourselves at a historical crossroads "between fear and hope," and the question is which road we will choose.

Although historic, it's not a situation the country is a stranger to, the author of three best-selling historical books believes. Much as they did during the post-WWII period, when returning veterans rolled up their sleeves and went to work to rebuild the economy of not only the nation but the world, today's citizens face a mix of both challenge and opportunity.

And one of the best models for leadership in today's climate, according to Brokaw? Independent grocers. He believes the spirit that lives in the independent food retail community can serve as example, for three reasons:

Independent, community-based grocers have stubbornly refused to fade quietly into obscurity, even as economists and others have warned their demise is inevitable.
Independents regularly demonstrate they are willing to openly share good ideas with others, in order to advance the industry and their communities.
Every day they go to work intent on meeting the needs of the people around them.

Those are the traits that will carry America through its current natural wave of crisis, and continue to make it a model to lead the world, he assured the audience.

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LIFESTYLE MARKETING

How to Think like Whole Foods

Natural retailer Whole Foods Markets routinely doubles the per-square-foot gross of the typical supermarket. How they do it?

It all starts with the different set of assumptions they bring to retailing, supermarket consultant Art Turock told a Super Breakfast Session of this year's N.G.A. Convention. Consider the differences in assumptions, and the expense, time investment and training required to institute their differentiating attitudes:

Where conventional supermarkets assume...	Whole Foods assumes...	What makes it hard to copy
We are a supermarket	We are a hybrid retailer	You must be supermarket, health food store, foodservice, coffee house, all in one
We must be slightly better on many things	We will pick only two things, and be unquestionably superior in them	Extraordinary customer service and knowledge is required
We are generalists who serve a broad base	We want to be a specialist who serves only a small niche	Must be located in college and high-income communities
We compete by teaching customers to buy on low price	We teach customers to spend more on unique, quality products	Customers must be constantly educated on food value
Impulse buys only occur at checkout	Impulse buys happen in every aisle	Every display must find creative ways to "romance the food"

For more from Art Turock, click here.

For information on ordering a recording of this session, click here.

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Tap into the financial management of the new FMS Portal

FARMERS MEET RETAILERS

Now's Your Chance! Ask Farmers What You Always Wanted To Know

This year's N.G.A. Supermarket Synergy Showcase features the first annual Farmer Goes to Market program. A cooperative effort between N.G.A. and Food-Chain Communications, Farmer Goes to Market gathers some of the top farmers in the nation in the center of the show floor and makes them available for retailers to ask questions about what's on their customers' minds, from animal welfare to biotechnology, family farming to pesticides.

If you're reading this while in Las Vegas, stop by after noon today to get real answers from real farmers. If you're not at the convention, click here to learn about how you can tap into the expertise of our growing database of farmers.

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EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS

Ideas to Keep Shoppers Coming Back in Rough Times

By Kimberly Angstadt, Amy Buno and Thomas Wilson Jr., N.G.A. 2009 Student Interns

RetailWire.com's Ryan Matthews, Liz Crawford and Ron Margulis suggested 21 good ideas to hang onto shoppers through these tough times, at an open roundtable during this year's N.G.A. convention. Some ideas included:

Enhance existing loyalty programs by forming strategic alliances with other companies...offer frequent flyer miles with purchases, for instance.
Get into social networking...the new interactive Internet tools like Twitter offer new opportunities to continue reaching out to consumers.
Target the growing market of chronic disease sufferers...set up demos to provide customers with diabetic friendly food and diabetes education.
Cross-merchandise and cross-promote relentlessly. Think in terms of functional displays rather than categories. Set up meal prep kiosks.
Develop a party registry where customers can register.
Never miss an opportunity to collect, analyze and use customer feedback. You have to learn what they need and want.

To learn more from your peers by joining in the Retailwire.com discussion, click here.

For information on ordering a recording of this session, click here.
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Great food images for your marketing and displays

ENTERTAINMENT

Conference Attendees Screen Premiere Documentary on N.G.A.'s Best Bagger Competition

N.G.A. conference attendees packed the screening room Wednesday night to preview the critically acclaimed "Paper or Plastic?" a new documentary about N.G.A.'s popular Best Bagger competition. The film follows state champs as they prepare for the national competition. In doing so, it examines the lives of eight diverse individuals and the distinct communities around them. "Paper or Plastic?" celebrates the individuals still willing to commit all they have to making themselves the best they can be, intent on pursuing excellence wherever they find opportunity for it.

To view a trailer of this fun and wholesome movie, click here.

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AWARDS and RECOGNITION

K-VA-T Food Stores' Pamela D. Murray to be Selected WGA Woman of the Year; N.G.A. Names Its New Board Members

The Women's Grocers Association will honor Pamela D. Murray, 28-year veteran of K-VA-T Food Stores (parent company of Food City) as its WGA Woman of the Year tonight. In addition, N.G.A. earlier announced these new additions to the association's board of directors:

Retailer members:

Juvenal Chavez Sr., Chairman and CEO, Mi PuebloFoodCenter, San Jose, CA
Ken Hubbard, CEO, Western Supermarkets, Inc., Birmingham, AL
Bobby Ukrop, President & CEO, Ukrop's Super Markets Inc., Richmond, VA

Wholesalers:

Christopher Brown, Executive VP Food Distribution, Nash Finch Company, Minneapolis, MN
Jerry Garland, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Associated Wholesale Grocers, Kansas City, KS
Jack Porter, Vice President of Sales, Kehe Food Distributors, Inc.

Manufacturer/Suppliers:

Dennis Belcastro, Vice President, Customer Development/Industry Relations, Kraft Foods Global, Inc., Northfield, IL
Jerry Brown, Vice President, Industry & Customer Development, Unilever, Trumbull, CT
Ted Herrod, Vice President & General Manager Strategic Grocery, PepsiCo, Inc., Plano, TX
Mark Wagner, Executive Vice President and CCO, U.S. Morning Foods, Kellogg USA, Inc. Battle Creek, MI

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