Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes wrapped up its annual trade show and year-end meeting last week in Syracuse, N.Y. President and CEO John MacDougall announced that w008 was a record year for Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes and he credited the success to the company’s focus on people and customers.
Several top employees were recognized during the meeting. Several stores were recognized for outstanding sales achievements during 2008. The Store of the Year for 2008 award is based on the top store in sales achievement, customer satisfaction and overall appearance. This year’s award was presented to the Ilion, N.Y., Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppe, owned and operated by Clifford Fuel of Utica, N.Y. This unit, managed by Sally Preston, put together a record year. The sales growth was in the top three of all of the Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes.
“Sally’s expertise is maintaining a low turnover rate,” said franchise director John Zbytniewski, “She has ten employees with three years of service plus and five of the ten employees have more than six years. With a well-seasoned crew like this, they have high expectations and the store certainly came through in 2008 with flying colors.”
The prestigious award of “Manager of the Year” was presented to Valerie Conley of the Carthage Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppe.
With foodservice being such an integral part of the overall success of Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, Greg Short was honored with the “Foodservice Manager of the Year”. According to Jack Cushman, executive vice president of foodservices, “Greg is a very positive, charismatic leader and works great with the customers and employees. Greg has a very good sense of who he is and is deserving of this award.”
Brandon McConnell of the Chaumont, N.Y., Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppe, was recognized as “Assistant Manager of the Year.” Director of Franchise John Zbytniewski said, “Brandon is a busy man who focuses his efforts and abilities to get the job done.”
Clifford Fuel was recognized with the Franchise Achievement Award for 2008. This award is given to the Nice N Easy franchisee that experiences the largest growth in 2008. Clifford Fuel opened two new stores, in Taberg and Alder Creek, throughout the year.
According to Senior Executive Vice President Peter Tamburro, “The staff works tremendously well as a team. They empower their managers to keep their stores full, neat and clean. The display and merchandising has excelled throughout the year. And their two new stores have exceeded our expectations!”
Diane Conger, manager of the corporate Pennellville Nice N Easy was honored with the “Sharon Jordan Memorial True Spirit Award.” This particular award is given by MacDougall himself. Each year, MacDougall selects one employee who emulates the “true spirit” shown by our former employee, Sharon Jordan. Sharon was an exceptional employee of Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes who passed away following a short illness.
Conger has been at Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes for 20 years and her true commitment, leadership and dedication are just a few of the reasons that she was honored with this award, MacDougall added.
Each year, Nice N Easy Grocery presents the Trade Partner of the Year award to a supplier that contributes greatly to the bottom line and truly makes a difference during the year. This year’s recipients were Anheuser-Busch and its local distributors. According to our Director of Category Management Jared Sturtevant, “Anheuser-Busch had double digit sales increase, had a huge product introduction with Bud Light Lime and they have a fantastic distribution network. They are all top-notch.”
Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes currently operates 82 stores in the Upstate New York market and has been in business for 29 years.