Account Call
Met Lenny and his wife for dinner near his home in Port St Lucie, FL. Lenny is a long time supporter of NW Cherries and plans to promote aggressively again this year if supplies are as predicted. Price Chopper is now part of Northeast Shared Services (NESS), with C&S handling the buying for both Price Chopper and Tops Friendly Markets. While C&S does the procurement, Price Chopper still makes the decisions and sets their own ads. Not sure how long this arrangement will last but for now, we can expect aggressive advertising during the season. If C&S does take over the advertising, then we will probably have to change the way we provide the NW Cherry support.
As a follow up to last years meeting, Lenny Siegel is really dissatisfied with the way the arrangement with Northeast Shared Services is going. He says that C&S has abandoned all their long time relationships and is also making to Lenny what seems to be excessive profits on a per box basis, causing their retails to be uncompetitive. He says that management is unresponsive to his concerns. Lenny is ready for retirement but would like to continue working for awhile but is frustrated with the way the NESS deal is developing.