This document provides an overview of Patrick J. Curran's career experience and expertise in the food industry. Over 28 years, he has held various senior leadership roles in marketing, merchandising, procurement, and business development at major supermarket chains and distributors. The document outlines his strengths in areas like strategic planning, category management, store brands, perishables, pricing, and customer relationship marketing. It also details the positions he has held and the companies he has worked for.

1. Marketing. Merchandising.
Procurement.
Business Development.
Category Management.
Loyalty Marketing.
Patrick J. Curran Consulting, LLC
Introduction and Career History

2. Industry Depth and Breadth
 Distinguished Industry Experience and Expertise
 In four distinct areas of exposure in the food business
1. The Supermarket Channel, Perishables and Center Store
2. The Specialty, Natural & Organic Food Space
3. Store Brand Management
4. Wholesale Grocery Distribution
 Key positions held in high quality companies,
corporate level responsibilities for strategic planning,
marketing, merchandising, pricing, loyalty marketing,
business development, sourcing, procurement and
supply chain
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3. Senior Level Leadership CredentialsTwenty-eight (28) years of senior level leadership. Leadership positions since 1986 in chronological order.
 Director of Grocery and Bakery for Jewel Food Stores Midwest Division, Chicago market share
leader,
 Vice President of Corporate Grocery & General Merchandise for BI-LO Supermarkets, division of
Ahold, Greenville, SC
 American Store’s ACME Markets unit as the Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing,
Philadelphia
 Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing and Distribution at a Gulf Coast regional chain of 120
stores named Delchamps
 Re-hired by BI-LO to fill the new position of Vice-President of Sales & Marketing
 Promoted to the Senior Vice President of Perishables for BI-LO Supermarkets
 Special assignment in Mergers & Acquisitions function for Ahold USA , was the Senior Vice
President of Acquisition Integration
 Returned to BI-LO as the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Planning
 Held the post of Vice-President of Supply Chain & Logistics for one of the nation’s largest
specialty, natural and organic food distributors, Kehe Food, the Chicago area
 Recruited to Tops Markets, as the Senior Vice President Of Sales & Marketing, western New York
 Senior Director of Grocery and Supply Chain for Daymon Worldwide, San Antonio, dedicated to
HEB Markets store brands
 Vice-President of Marketing and Purchasing for Dearborn Wholesale Grocers, Chicago, IL
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4. Senior Level Marketing Thought Leader
STRATEGIC PLANNING IDENTIFYING ORGANIC GROWTH
OPPORTUNITIESo Vision and goals
o Research and assessment
o Segment Profitability
o Value Proposition
o Brand Positioning
o Organization Capability
o Resource Allocation
o Supply Chain / Logistics
o Execution
o Analytics
1. Driving sales
2. New markets
3. Customer segments
4. Alternative formats
5. Category / product
6. Fresh
7. Services
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5. Category Management Know-How
STRATEGIC BUSINESS UNITS EXECUTION
o Value proposition
o Consumer centric focus
o Category roles
o Assortment differentiation
o Product innovation
o Talent deployment
o Training and development
o Strategic partnerships
o Financial process and controls
1. Gap closure, share targets
2. Pricing proposition
3. Cost clarity
4. Margin model management
5. Promotion effectiveness
6. Visual merchandising
7. Space and shelf management
8. Supply chain and inventory
9. Monitor and measure
10. Quality and value messaging
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6. Winning With Perishables
 Fresh Food expertise (Produce, Meat, Seafood, Deli, Bakery, Café and Floral) 35% of chain
sales and 38% of profit.
 Held top perishable post as S.V.P. Perishables for a large chain (BI-LO Supermarkets)
 As the Tops Markets CMO, the perishable V.P.’s reported to me.
 Assortment strategy
 Quality tier positioning
 Sourcing and forming local and global supplier relationships
 Negotiations
 Supply “cold” chain and logistics
 Visual merchandising programs
• Meal and nutrition solutions
• Fixturing plans
• Point-of-sale messaging
 Sales promotion
 Pricing strategy and margin optimization
 Shrink control plans and program development
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7. Organizational Design
ACCOMPLISHED AT BUILDING MARKETING
AND MERCHANDISING TEAMS AND
ORGANIZATION CAPABILITY THEN POPULATING TOP TALENT!
 Marketing
 Perishable Departments
 Advertising
 Market Research
 Customer Relationship Marketing
 Community Affairs
 Customer Service
 Fuel Centers
 Merchandising
 Category Management
 Space Management
 Pricing Departments
 Store Brands
 Procurement
 Supply Chain
 Store Development
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8. Store Development and Design
PROFICIENT IN CAP EX PLANNING, STORE
DESIGN AND LAYOUT
o Shopping experience
o New departments and services
o Department location
o Adjacencies
o Space allocation
o Sight lines
o Fuel centers
o Land, lot, egress / ingress
o Fixed asset capital investment
o Fixture planning
o Inventory investment
o Store blueprints
o IRR analysis
o Store acquisition and conversion
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9. Multi-Media Marketing Communications
ONE SIGHT, ONE SOUND, ONE SELL! MEDIA MIX AND WEIGHT!
 Strategy
 Creative
 Branding
 Amplify personality
 Look, tone and feel
 Campaigns and execution
 Leading advertising agencies
 Talented in copy writing and
imagery
 Media planning knowledge
1. Print – circulars and ROP
2. Television
3. Radio
4. Point-of-sale, shelf and collateral
5. Direct mail
6. Web
7. Sports venues
8. Community
9. Social
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10. Driving Sales, Delivering Extraordinary Value
Highly promotional, go-to-market approach
Creating value and communicating the “reason to believe” to customers,
associates and trading partners
 Understanding the new consumer frugality
1. Everyday values on the shelf
2. Store brand alternatives
3. Special buys
4. Manufacturer funded deals
5. Cross channel value accessible from all media
6. Exploiting paper and electronic coupons
7. Customer specific
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11. Visual Merchandising With Excitement
CORPORATE MERCHANDISING
PLANNING VISUAL MERCHANDISING
 Long range strategy and planning
 Category management
 Integration of manufacturer and
store brand plans
 Seasonal promotion planning
calendar
 Localized offerings
 Emphatic point-of-sale messaging
 Display plan mirrors advertising
 Loaded with value
 Exciting meal or problem solving
solution ideas
 Hyper-local neighborhood
merchandising
 Co-ordinated sign package, shelf
tags, signs and collateral
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12. Developing the Pricing Proposition
Strategy and Philosophy
 Philosophy aligned with brand strategy and financial objectives and constraints
 Solidarity of top management on philosophy of value proposition
 Answering the questions: Leader or follower? What is your desired position in the market? What
member(s) of the competitive set do you position yourself against? How do you compete with
alternative channels, i.e., dollar stores, mass and drug?
 Clearly defined approach supported with policies, roles, rules, guidelines and KVI’s
 Documented, codified
 Measurement and compliance
 Fair and reasonable
Organization Model of the Department and People
 Decision on centralization, decentralization or a collaborative hybrid model of the pricing function
Integrating and Leveraging Supporting Technology
 Internal legacy systems
 Off the shelf price optimization and trade deal management software i.e., DemandTec©
/ TradePoint© customized software
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13. Adding Value With Store Brands
Daymon Worldwide
Provided store brand management services for 400 supplier partners to the
HEB / Central Markets supermarket chain in San Antonio, Texas.
1. Drove sales growth
2. Implemented sourcing programs
3. Provided consultative category assortment recommendations
4. Established processes to reveal cost clarity and negotiation
5. Managed retail price optimization
6. Submitted packaging design ideas and retail ready packaging solutions
7. Created the five season sales promotion and merchandising calendar
8. Improved service levels
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14. Customer Relationship Marketing (CSM)
 Launched one of the most successful supermarket loyalty marketing programs at BI-LO.
Was mentored by Brian Wolf then the leading expert on loyalty marketing.
 Deployed the strategic and tactical use of “shopper behavior” data, for example, basket
analysis, promotional effectiveness and private brand penetration
 Customer segmentation techniques according to spending behavior
 Frequency
 Recency
 Spending
 Reward program development
 Retention
 New customers
 Lost, lapsed
 Defection
 Stimulus
 Competitive defense
 Fuel Center rewards
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15. Customer Relationship Marketing (CSM)
 Fluent in creating the annual expenditure budget for loyalty marketing
programs
 Experienced in developing master annual planning calendar
 Engaged the services of allied partners who provide creative and technical
 Web marketing
 Sports marketing sponsorships at Tops Markets
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16. Business Development Acumen
Experienced in presenting customer specific programs and solutions to C-level
decision makers.
1. For example, presented programs and services to the national headquarter
offices of Target and Wal-Mart
2. And customer business development and new customer acquisition in the
regional and independently owned supermarket chain space
3. Created, authored, developed and presented customized detailed plans,
growth programs and innovative solutions to the leaders of these
companies
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17. Enhancing the Assortment With Specialty Food
Kehe Food Distributors – Chicago, IL (prominent national marketer / distributor
of specialty, natural and organic foods). Director and Vice President.
1. Accelerated growth of the emerging perishables department
2. Developed customized retail customer programs and solutions
3. Launched new perishable food programs in the convenience store channel
4. Appointed to lead the logistics functions at a time when the company
became a national distributor
5. Enthusiastically participated in the turnaround of the company
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18. Trade Partnerships and Promotion
Cast the vision and clarify the direction to our “trading partners.” Overall supervision of the
portfolio of manufacturer trade development funds.
 Manufacturer marketing development fund business process
 Stat case, scan down, lump sum
 Volume based incentives (VBI)
 Placement and display
 Managing the portfolio accounting
 Go-to-market strategy, manufacturer by manufacturer
1. Leveraging and aligning manufacturer funds to drive growth
2. EDLP
3. Highly promotional
4. Display support
5. Advertising support
6. Negotiation of funding in the broader context of the cost-of-goods
 Execution of the everyday pricing, promotion and merchandising
 Clawback of funds unpaid or accrued insufficiently
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19. Financial Disciplines & Performance Management
Very comfortable and fluent with P&L’s. Can dig deep into the numbers and reveal the insights
and issues.
 Highly experienced in short and long range budgeting
 Proforma
 Quarterly forecasting
 Sales, dollars, units and tonnage
 Gross profit
 Stock loss
 S, G & A expenses
 EBITDA
 Customer transactions and spending behavior
 Margin management
 Market and store level trends
 Department level performance
 Category and product performance
 Shopping behavior
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20. Exposure to Geographic and Cultural Diversity
 Lived and worked across a large geographic region of the
United States
 The Midwest, specifically the Chicago market
 The Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee
 The Gulf Coast
 The Delaware River Valley (Pennsylvania and New Jersey)
 Western New York
 South Texas
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21. National Exposure and Knowledge Across
Formats and Channels
Familiarity with top tier supermarket chains and alternative formats
 Well acquainted with superior regional chains, examples include:
 Wegmans
 HEB
 Researched alternative formats
1. Aldi
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Target’s P-Fresh
4. Whole Foods
5. Dollar Stores
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22. Contact Information
Patrick J. Curran Consulting, LLC
2860 Melrose Lane
Naperville, IL 60564-6008
pat@patrickjcurran.com
www.patrickjcurran.com
630.210.5668
Thank you for your consideration.
Patrick
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