Food & Beverage Community Meeting
October 20 – 10:00AM-2:00PM

The meeting of the SOCAP Food & Beverage Industry Community will include two parts:

10:00-11:15AM – Presentation of F&B Data from SOCAP 2010 Industry Benchmarking Survey
The first part of the meeting will offer a presentation from COPC Inc. on the latest benchmarking findings for food and beverage from the SOCAP 2010 Industry Benchmarking Study.  Participants will hear a detailed discussion of the results and have an opportunity to ask questions about the survey data. 

11:30AM-1:30PM – Retailer Panel
The second part of the meeting will feature a panel of F&B retailers as they discuss insights and share perspectives on what it’s like to be on the front lines of customer engagement.  Hear from large and small retailers about their experiences with the product return process—from initial consumer interaction through the decisions that determine the rate and level of complaint escalation to the final questions asked before bringing an issue to the supplier.  The retailers on the panel will share what they expect of suppliers and what F&B suppliers can do to better help them.

Other topics to be addressed by the retail panel include:

• Involvement of risk management
• Reimbursement procedures
• Policies for sharing financial responsibilities for claims
• Policies around product samples related to consumer complaints
• Retailer evaluation of suppliers

Panelists for the retailer panel include:

• Donald Lacey, Senior Director, Quality Assurance, Loblaw
• Cheryl Macik, Wakefern Foods
  
• Mary Joan Stryker, Consumer Services Team Leader, Wegmans Food Markets

Lunch will be served.  Registration to the full Annual Conference is required to attend this session.  Additional registration fee of $65 is required.