Consumer Brands attends AWG Innovation Showcase

Employees from Schwan's Consumer Brands, Inc. recently attended
AWG's second annual Innovation Showcase in Kansas City, Kansas.

April 8, 2019 — Our Schwan’s Consumer Brands team recently packed up the company’s sampling truck and headed to the Kansas City-metropolitan area to participate in AWG’s Innovation Showcase and visit AWG’s headquarters. While there, team members met with more than 180 equity owners showcasing Consumers Brands’ planogram expertise in the frozen Asian, pizza and desserts categories, foresight on category trends and also sampled product to demonstrate the company’s attention to high-quality, delicious foods.

“The AWG Innovation Showcase is a great opportunity to meet many of the co-op members representing more than 3,600 retail stores in more than 30 states,” said Drew Sanders, national accounts manager. “Learning firsthand about the market challenges these independent retailers face and how they are using our products to compete in the marketplace is exciting. The show helps foster a better partnership for our mutual benefit.”

This was AWG’s second annual Innovation Showcase. It featured more than 160 innovative vendors and more than 50 concurrent educational workshops, all focused on supporting AWG’s members by better aligning the efforts of the cooperative, its members and vendor-partners.

AWG is the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets, serving more than 1,000 member companies and more than 3,600 locations in 36 states from eight full-line wholesale divisions. In addition to its cooperative wholesale operations, the company also operates subsidiary companies that provide certain real estate and supermarket development services, print and digital marketing services, and is a wholesale supply provider of health and beauty care, GM, specialty/international foods and pharmaceutical supply.

“I am extremely proud of the work our team has done over the last year to grow our business and distribution with AWG," said Tom Gunderman, director of sales. "We are off to a great start in 2019 and each team member is contributing at a very high level.”

“We look forward to capitalizing on the opportunities in front of us from the groundwork we’ve laid as a result of this event and contributing to Schwan’s Company’s success in 2019,” Tom added. “Our mission is to further engage the member owners and be very strategic in our approach to improving distribution and sales growth.”

Additional employees who attended and supported the event include Ron Slominski, Seth Rhoades, Joel Cooper, Matt Horn, Dan Easterlund, Mark Wasson, Chris Moritz and Eric Beck.