The great thing about the New Year is the clean slate we are given to perhaps look at our lives, our businesses, our homes with fresh, less busy and encumbered eyes. Many of you, I imagine, are doing the same with your stores, tweaking this and replacing that. We do the same at Gourmet Business, refining our editorial offering to meet your continuously evolving information needs.
In 2014, we introduced our Best Practices features covering key areas of discipline in retail – marketing, operations, merchandising and promotions – at the request of our retail advisory team. This year, we will continue with these features, adding other topic areas including risk management, social media and technology, to name a few. In this issue, be sure to read “Handle Your Food Liability Carefully,” on page 18, by Curtis Sobel, an experienced attorney who principally practices in the area of food and product liability. With food-borne illnesses affecting 48 million Americans annually, retailers that sell food must rigorously protect themselves from liability. And stay tuned next month for the first of a two-part Best Practices report on social media presented by marketing expert Ralph Pagan.
In this issue, we also introduce a new department feature called “Seven Questions For ... ” Gourmet Business will select four or five manufacturer/ supplier business executives during the year to share their business philosophies and experience, peppered with some personal views. Don Turano, North American president of Joseph Joseph, is our inaugural 2015 interview for this special feature. Turn to page 20 to learn what Turano believes are his company’s biggest growth opportunities as well as the one company he admires most, and why.
We hope you are starting 2015 filled with hope and are beginning to fill in that clean slate with great ideas to execute in your stores. Our plan at Gourmet Business is to continue to inspire you along the way. Happy New Year!
Maureen Azzato
Managing Editor, Gourmet Business
mazzato@gourmetbusiness.com