Independent Irish grocer Fresh The Good Food Market has been named the winner of the inaugural Small Store of the Year award at the IGD Awards in London, the premier awards event honouring retailer, wholesaler and supplier excellence.
The award was sponsored by ESM: European Supermarket Magazine, and ESM editor Stephen Wynne-Jones was at the event to present the award to Noel Smith and the Fresh team.
In fact, the event was a a good one for Irish businesses in general, with Musgrave Group taking the award for Shopper Insight, Greencore taking the John Sainsbury Learning & Development award, and industry veteran Eddie Power taking home the IGD Lifetime Achievement award.
Retailer Of The Year
The top award of the evening, for Retailer of the Year, went to Waitrose & Partners.
Some 20 awards were presented on the day, with Waitrose also picking up the IGD Presidents Cup at the event, alongside parent company John Lewis & Partners.
Ocado was named Online Retailer of the Year, Subway won Food-To-Go Retailer of the Year, while Andrew Selley, the chief executive of Bidfood, won The Grocer Cup, which honours an individual that has inspired his or her team to achieve impressive results over the past year.
International retailer Alibaba took the award for Store of the Year, for its Hema Fresh outlet in Beijing.
Other winners included Thatchers Cider (Employability award), Mondelez International (Employee Wellbeing award), The Walt Disney Company (Health & Wellness), East Of England Co-op (Sustainable Futures) and Heineken (Supply Chain Excellence).
Celebrating Excellence
“Since 1991 the IGD Awards have celebrated the achievements of over 540 winners across the food and grocery industry,” commented Nick Downing, commercial director at IGD.
“Every year the entries somehow manage to top the last with this year being no exception, raising the bar even higher. Yet again we received a very large number of entries from companies of all sizes, demonstrating the innovative, high-quality work taking place across our industry.”
Downing added that while the industry continues to face some challenging times, it “never fails to impress with inventive ways to keep surprising and delighting shoppers with fresh ideas and great service. Congratulations to all our winners and finalists.”
A full list of winners can be found at www.igd.com/awards
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
