Had a great meeting with 4 people from Food Lion. They were Maclaren Oglesby, Category Manager,  Thomas Musgrave, assistant category manager, Chad Sarvis Cherry buyer, and Chris Dooley, Analyst.  Two of the people that we met with last year are no longer there.   Angela the produce buyer has left the company and Rick the assistant category manager has gotten a promotion and is no longer in the buying office.

Maclaren is excited to get started in Northwest cherries.  He realizes that he has missed some dollars from lost sale on California cherries and truly recognizes the importance of NW Cherries to his department.  Food Lion will have 1031 stores by mid-June.  We met for over an hour and discussed a lot of information on Northwest Cherries.  In addition to their regular intent, they were offered some extra promotional dollars by achieving a 10% increase in tonnage over 2017.  All felt quite sure they could do it and I am convinced that are going to give it a 100% effort.

Think we are going to see some good things from Food Lion in 2018.