Recently, Associated Food Stores welcomed visitors from Topco Associates and Universal Media, Inc. (UMI) to its corporate office. The visits highlighted the growing partnerships that help AFS and its retailers work smarter and more efficiently.
Topco, a member-owned cooperative based in Itasca, Illinois, provides aggregation, innovation and knowledge solutions to food industry members, including AFS. The Topco Indirect Team met with AFS teams across supply chain, store development, marketing and category management to check in and explore ways to work together more effectively. Topco’s team also unveiled key initiatives they have planned for 2026, each of which was focused on helping us drive cost savings around several key parts of our value chain.
“Our partnership with Topco is incredibly valuable,” said Todd Bell, vice president of procurement. “They help us leverage collective buying power and connect with top suppliers, which brings real savings and efficiencies to our stores.” 
At the same time, UMI, a full-service media agency based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, met in person with AFS’s marketing team. Last year, AFS switched media agencies, selecting UMI to bring more scale and expertise to media buying across Topco’s retail and wholesale partners.
UMI supports many Topco regional grocers with media buying support and other key services. Because of these relationships, they are able to bring grocery-specific expertise to AFS and ARO’s planning and media efforts. UMI has also recently onboarded a key AFS MRO retailer to their services and is in the process of developing lower-cost solutions that all of AFS’ retailers could use to better reach their shoppers.
“UMI’s data-driven approach and media buying expertise make a big difference in our marketing,” said Jason Sokol, vice president of marketing. “They have brought on a variety of the latest Ai and machine learning tools to assist with creative insights, quicker execution and so much more. Working together, we’re able to run smarter campaigns and reach the right customers more effectively.”
Boyd Irving, vice president of center store, added, “The coordination between our teams has been outstanding. Partnerships like these give us access to resources and insights that would be challenging to achieve on our own.”
The visits reflected significant preparation by both AFS and its partners. The strengthened relationships with Topco and UMI are expected to continue driving efficiency and growth for AFS and its member retailers.