Slides:
Scenes From the NGA Show Floor
Scenes From the NGA Show Floor
Scenes From the NGA Show Floor
Get great content like this in your inbox.Subscribe
About 400 exhibitors—representing everything from cutting-edge technologies to novelty gifts, heavy equipment and gourmet foods—occupied about 57,000 square feet of the San Diego Convention Center this week as the National Grocers Association (NGA) Show came to town.
What follows are some scenes from the show floor.
Who was the masked man? Nigel Febland, unmasked here, and president of The Febland Group Inc., represented a number of costume and Halloween manufacturers exhibiting on the floor. Febland said most of his group were first-time exhibitors at NGA looking to secure direct deals with retailers.
Matt Briller and Rob Rafacz of Ace Hardware talked about the potential of a symbiotic relationship between the hardware brand and grocery stores, particularly those with about 6,000 square feet of excess space.
Paragon Solutions, a Fort Worth, Texas-based store design firm, is known for innovative designs and helping convenience stores advance foodservice initiatives, skills that are also relevant as grocery stores move to embrace convenience and meal solutions, Andrew Swedenborg of Paragon said.
Taylor Rausch (left) is CEO and founder of Bear’s Breath, a spicy, low-sugar ketchup. With him are colleagues Lauren Prater and Nicholas Cryder.
A representative of Lift-Rite gets high above the show floor. A company representative said its units can increase safety and efficiency for stocking and other tasks in stores.
Gaston Dion is president of Dion Herbs & Spices, a Quebec-based spice company whose products come in stackable, flat packages that can be merchandised in pull-out shelves and are coming to stores such as Wegmans Food Markets.
Scott DeGraeve and Mike Dembo of Locai, the e-commerce software company that grew out of the technologies behind the Door to Door Organics business.
Nick Nickitas of the e-commerce software company Rosie, which has partnered with numerous independent retailers. Nickitas said the company was focused on software enhancements providing analytics, including, for example, a timer that can record the speed at which click-and-collect orders are assembled.
Jared Black and Frank Colbert of the Lubbock, Texas-based retail technology firm Truno. The company’s Time Forge is a cloud-based shift scheduling app in use at retailers such as Sprouts Farmers Markets.
Tim Kane of Zebra Technologies with one of the company’s hand-held devices, which it calls a touch computer. Kane said retailers were shopping for technologies to make their stores faster and more efficient.
Get today’s need-to-know grocery industry intelligence. Sign up to receive texts from Winsight Grocery Business.
The stresses of the ongoing pandemic, coupled with mounting economic uncertainty, social unrest and more have fueled a pressure cooker for grocery and convenience store customers and their employees.
U.S. consumers in 2022 were nothing if not channel surfers. Tuned into a widening lineup of local retailers offering fresh food, consumers were willing to shop around and try new retailer categories as they sought to ease the pinch of grocery inflation, which stood at 11.8% in December.
New store updates are important to our readers, so we’re adding a monthly feature to highlight them and demonstrate supermarket growth trends around the country.
Listen in to WGB’s flagship podcast, 10 Items or Less, featuring insights from retailers and industry professionals.
Exclusive industry info and insights straight to your inbox
Your go-to resource for all things grocery