instore IDDBA Recap - June 2015 - 14

speaker recap

IDDBA Speakers
Provide Inspiring Words
and the dairy-deli-bakery industry must
embrace the challenges and opportunities
of doing business in the digital age.

Food Safety Alarms
Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert talked
about the high stakes of food safety in his
IDDBA presentation. "Consumers wake up
every morning and want to know more
about their food. And dairy-deli-bakery has
become the most important department of
the supermarket."

Shaquille
O'Neal

Keynote speakers at the International
Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association's Dairy-DeliBake Seminar & Expo covered a wide range
of weighty topics, from food safety to the
ongoing digital revolution and its looming
effect on business strategy and growth.
And yet the largest figure on stage proved to
be Dr. Shaquille O'Neal, the 7-foot-1, former
National Basketball Association star who
delighted the crowd with his humor and
lessons in leadership skills. "For me, humor in
leadership is important," O'Neal says. "I like to
make people laugh." He also shared valuable
life lessons. His advice to all: "Know your role,
and the significance of your role, because
every role is important."
Two major themes arose from the IDDBA
center stage: Food retailers and suppliers
must do more to ensure the safety of food,
14 * 2015 IDDBA Recap * instore

"Consumers don't like take-your-own
samples. They're afraid of someone else
touching the food. There's a time for
sampling and a way to do sampling right."
Lempert cautions that food safety matters
to shoppers "every single moment" that
your store is open and closed. Dairy-delibakery-foodservice needs to be the leader
in food safety, he urges. "It is single most
important department of the store. If we

The produce department used to be the
supermarket's top driver for bringing shoppers into their stores, but prepared foods
have changed all that. Consumers want
foods to go, including flavorful bakery, deli
and cheese items, from their favorite supermarkets. This presents an opportunity.
"If you screw up on foodservice, you're out
of business," Lempert warns. Supermarket
delis, especially, need to make sure store
employees are washing hands in view of
customers and wearing sanitary gloves.
New IDDBA research reveals 10 physical
elements that inspire the most confidence
in food safety among dairy-deli-bakery
shoppers. These elements are clean floors,
scales and slicers that look clean, thermometers on showcases/coolers, bright
overhead lights, bright showcase lights,
prepared food stations with sneezing
guards, visable food temperature logs,
refrigerated cases that hold pre-sliced
meats, cheeses and salad items, refrigerated cases that hold pick-up orders, and
staffed demonstration/sampling tables.
"Physical appearance is critical to this
overall department," Lempert says.

Phil
Lempert

start leading, store sales will go up, and new
shoppers will be attracted to your stores."
Food safety attorney Shawn Stevens
painted a serious picture of the food safety
landscape in America, given the recent Blue
Bell listeria outbreak in which 10 people
were infected and three died. Last year
alone in the United States, there were 500
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