A few weeks ago, the executive team conducted a virtual team meeting for the corporate office. Following that meeting, the group held an in-person meeting with the distribution center team in Farr West last Friday.
In both meetings, President and CEO David Rice began with a “moment of gratitude” to share thoughts and express appreciation for the many successes the company, and its team members, are experiencing.
Following Dave, Travis Boman and Alan Whitman provided company financial updates in their respective meetings. Travis and Alan reported on wholesale sales, gross margins and labor showing that the company is performing well and anticipates further growth in the second half of 2023.
Members of the team services group, including Tim Conner, Jane Hill and Ken Culverson, provided updates on the company’s new recognition platform, Accolades. The platform allows team members to recognize their colleagues and receive rewards for their hard work.
Following the Accolades update, Roger White, Glen Keysaw and Justin Johnson gave updates on Project ROAR, the distribution center modernization initiative. The exciting project is moving forward at full speed.
Darin Peirce and Greg Welling provided progress updates on ARO’s success, including details about the new Macey’s Market Pinebrook store located near Park City and Jeremy Ranch. The grand opening of the newly remodeled store will occur this fall. Darin and Greg also gave updates on the renaming and remodeling of the Macey’s Market in Sugarhouse and discussed the future opening of Macey’s Market in Sandy.
Steve Miner shared many exciting additions to the AFS family as several independent grocers have joined the company or remodeled their stores. A new Clark’s in Lowry, a suburb of Denver, was of particular interest and will be grand opening soon.
Dave concluded the meeting by reminding the team of the goal of being the best independent and premier wholesaler in the west and how the company is rapidly progressing. Dave talked about the importance of synergy throughout the organization and the keys to future success as follows:
- Be One Associated
- Implement plans, delight customers
- Achieve our budgets
- Invest in the team, distribution center and stores
- Repeat
Additional updates on these and other projects will be shared in Team News in the coming weeks. Team members with afstores.com email addresses can view the team meeting video here.