Ryan Blancas, Beale Air Force Base Commissary, Calif.
Note: Since the awards were presented, Blancas was promoted to assistant grocery manager at the San Diego Commissary. Congratulations, Ryan!
1. What do you love most about your job?
What I love most about my job is being able to serve those who serve our country. Growing up with a Navy dad, I know the sacrifices the troops make to serve our country. Knowing I am providing a positive impact on the health of our troops by providing fresh quality produce keeps me going.
2. What’s your biggest challenge as a retail produce manager?
The biggest challenge I faced as a retail produce manager was increasing sales. The young airmen at Beale Air Force Base are usually shopping for pizza, hot pockets, chips and anything else convenient to eat or cook. I used their desire for convenience as my strategy and offered demos and sampling of fresh cut fruit. I put cut fruit in the queuing lines, in the grab and go area and offered free samples while troops waited in line to pay. Offering demos and fresh cut fruit proved a successful strategy to increase sales. It got to the point where the shelves with cut fruit were nearly empty every day after lunchtime.
3. What has changed most in the produce department during your time in retail?
What has changed most during my years working in retail is shopper interest in healthy foods. Customers are buying more fruits and vegetables and are looking for more organic products. The base commander at Beale Air Force Base made healthier eating one of his priorities for the troops. The base dietitian visited the Beale Commissary numerous times to find out what I had going to provide healthy options for our service members. I was able to show the dietitian the nutritional facts and POS materials we had around the produce department and how my crew and I made fresh cut fruit and vegetable trays.
4. What’s your favorite fruit? Vegetable?
I love bananas and broccoli.
5. What do you think are the most important things we can do to raise fruit and vegetable consumption?
We can educate our customers about the health benefits and nutritional value of fruits and vegetables. For example, kiwi can help you fall asleep and has more vitamin C than oranges, and eating broccoli and cabbage has been shown to help prevent cancer. We can provide nutritional information like this in eye appealing POS that gives our displays a wow factor. And demos! Lots of demos! We increased sales at the Beale Air Force Base Commissary by offering samples of tasty cut up produce and samples of prepared produce recipes. Demos definitely move customers to buy more fruits and vegetables.
Few can have more of an influence on sales than the people we have working on the front lines, in our stores, interacting with consumers every day.
Every month, Produce Retailer Magazine will feature some of the best merchandisers, managers and clerks helping make produce the most sought-after department in grocery retail.
We’re starting this series with winners of the 2016 Retail Produce Manager Awards, sponsored by Dole Food Co. and administered by the United Fresh Produce Association.