Mark your calendars!!
Crosset Company's Annual Buying
Food Show and
Educational Seminar will be held on
August 22, 2012 at
Great American Ball Park.
Seminar Registration Here
Details to follow.
2011 Food Show
The Crosset Company Annual Buying Food Show and Educational Seminar was held on August 17, 2011 at Great American Ball Park and it was a HUGE SUCCESS once again!
Since the beginning of the year, the Seminar Team started planning for this event. They choose the speakers, PHIL LEMBERT and JOE MORGAN; the date (scheduled the weather) and things we could do like, batting practice, ball park tours, hall of fame tours, the dinner cruise, the Great American Cook-off (that we added this year, which was great!!) and the prizes to be given away. When our customers really want to come and share with us a time of learning, excitement and fun; it makes the whole event worth all the effort. Our customers had a great time and we built stronger relationships with them. It’s very satisfying and really makes you feel good.
PHIL LEMPERT, known as The Supermarket Guru®, was our keynote speaker this year. He spoke on "The Consumer & Food Trends for 2011...the challenges & opportunities" and why this seminar is so important. He briefly discussed America's Health Report Card and how consumer needs change and evolve, as well as being hungry for health, savings and food information.
Three questions you should be asking:
(1) What is the next BIG trend?
(2) What are the three things you would like to know about consumers that you don’t know today?
(3) What’s the Retail Innovation over the past 12 months that you find the most interesting that is not food related?
Did you catch his thought on the future of the Food World being in the 3 C’s?
(1) Cater…to health and wellness,
(2) Create…a convenient and a “wow” experience,
(3) Celebrate…food, preparation and taste.
Remember the improvements that consumers want:
(1) lower prices
(2) more local
(3) more variety
(4) better service
(5) more fresh.
When selecting and choosing foods, what is most important are
(1) taste 88%
(2) nutritional information 79%
(3) ingredients 75%
(4) health attributes 65%
(5) brand names 46%.
Are you ahead of the elephant or behind? Didn’t Phil Lempert have some great information? Are you making sure your customers can get all the information that they want? Is your store and produce department “fabulous”? Did you realize that “service” is listening, really listening? What are you doing to take care of those $250.00 dollar a week customers? Are they happy? Are you rewarding them? Is your store a good value? Isn’t it nice to know that value is much more than price? What about the upcoming trends, like: less sugars; hand held devices replacing the shopping lists; credit cards and search engines, vitamin D milk will make a comeback, new soda’s may hit the markets, better testing for food allergies, the new definition of local, being able to scan a code and find out everything about it even when it came into your store, country of origin becomes even more important, people really want to know where their food is coming from.
His final thoughts about 2011 are on health, safety, social media, convenience, technology and value. We should focus on relationships, and think beyond loyalty to “Advocacy”; we should plead the cause! Did you sign up for the Lempert Report? We need to use all this great information and put it to good use!
Special Guest Speaker
JOE MORGAN, Cincinnati Reds Second Basemen; 10-Time All Star; 5 Gold Gloves; 1975 & 1976 National League MVP; 1972 All-Star Game MVP; 1982 Silver Slugger Award; 1982 NL Comeback Player of the Year; 1990 Inductee to the Hall of Fame
What about Joe Morgan; doesn’t he have a great worth ethic? Wasn’t it awesome to be able to listen and talk to a baseball legend? He was awesome and he really spoke highly about his teammates. What a lesson we can learn from him about teamwork. The only way to build a store or a produce department is through teamwork.
2010 Food Show
Food Show & Educational Seminar
The line-up was Crosset Company’s Signature Suppliers (the very best), our GREAT customers (we really appreciate you), the Crosset Team (who really know their stuff) Ed McLaughlin (world’s smartest professor) and Johnny Bench (best catcher ever to play the game, and a wonderful comedian).
Keynote Speaker:
EDWARD MCLAUGHLIN is the Robert G. Tobin Professor of Marketing, Director of the Undergraduate Business Program and Director of the Food Industry Management Program at Cornell University.
Ed's knowledge of the business was quite impressive. A few key points he presented were:
1. We need to watch our sales trends and be able to meet our customer’s needs since there is a shift from restaurants back to home eating. You need to be aware in the shift from up-scale to value and brands to private label.
2. Food in our country is really a good value. And how about our farmers; it’s amazing how efficient they have become. It interesting to see how China, Japan, India and other world stores look like. Would you pay $200.00 for a good melon? You really need to count yourself lucky to live in our great nation where we have been blessed with so much. It’s also good to know that America’s consumption for fruits and vegetable is still on the way up.
3. How about connecting with your customers on facebook or twitter and build up an audience keeping them informed about when the best fruits and vegetables will arrive?
4. Ed said sampling was still a great idea. He also said we really need to highlight homegrown and organics.
5. All of us need to keep our noses to the grind stone, have a positive attitude and meet our customers needs.
Special Guest Speaker:
JOHNNY BENCH, Cincinnati Reds Cather. 1989 Hall of Fame Inductee; named the 16th greatest player of all time; 1968 National League Rookie of the Year; 1970 & 1972 National League Most Valuable Player; 1976 World Series MVP; 14-time All-Star and 10 Gold Glove winner. In 1999, Bench esteemed honor of selection to the All Century Team. Johnny played his entire career with the Cincinnati Reds.
Johnny Bench was outstanding and quite the comedian.
1. He said you need to have a "TEAM" to be successful.
2. He talked about how important "ATTITUDE" is and it's our choice everyday.
3. “Effort” is for excellence. He said never give up and then stomped his foot and said “get over it”.
4. “Individual” being the best you can be and accepting all your responsibilities.
5. “Opportunities” that come our way, we need to take advantage of all of them.
6. “Using” the knowledge and information that is available to you from technology and your peers is a great idea. Don’t be afraid to ask someone else who already knows how to do it.
What an entertainer and motivational speaker.
