RIS News Names the 2009 Supermarket Leadership Award Winners

RIS News announced the winners of 2009 Supermarket Leadership Awards at the fourth annual Supermarket Executive Summit (SES), held at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, Colorado from June 10 to 12.

Three outstanding grocery retailers were honored for their ability to execute a successful business strategy by combining strong performance-based results with advanced IT proficiency. Award winners were chosen by the editors of RIS News and the RIS Editorial Advisory Board from more than 20 nominations submitted by retailers and IT providers.

The 2009 Supermarket Leadership Awards Winners are:

Supervalu: Outstanding Achievement
Supervalu, a nationwide network of more than 2,500 stores, has faced tremendous growth over the years that has been both organic and through acquisitions. With a sprawling IT infrastructure and workforce of more than 190,000 associates, the fast-growing company needed visionary leadership to unify IT applications, platforms and networks to streamline manual and stop-gap processes and applications. Supervalu's Lynn Olsen, vice president of retail operations, accepted the Outstanding Achivement Award for the retailer's broad-based excellence in business and IT initiatives, improvements and projects.

Bozzuto's: Outstanding Achievement
Bozzuto's not only operates supermarkets in New England, but it also operates as a food wholesaler to 900 stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Not content with standard ordering systems, Bozzuto's equipped its two-day purchasing event for its customers with a unique set of wireless e-commerce technologies that replace paper-intensive processes by using wireless tablet PCs, an RFID tracking system and wireless kiosks. Bozzuto's Steve Methvin, vice president of retail systems and e-commerce, accepted the Outstanding Achievement Award for the retailer's ability to develop a new and transformational way grocers may someday enable shopping in their stores.

Bill Homa and Hannaford Bros: Professional Achievement
Hannaford Bros. is a 125-year-old New England-based, regional powerhouse that operates 165 stores and is a North American division of Belgium-based Delhaize. Under the IT leadership of former VP and CIO Bill Homa, Hannaford pushed boundaries in retailing. During his years at Hannaford, which he left in 2008, Homa rolled out one of the first Linux POS systems as well as one of the first execution management platforms in retailing. These efforts, and many others in such areas as networking and standards-based architecture, moved the needle within Hannaford, created business value, and established it as a leader in the use of advanced technology in retailing.