Jim Fair
Potential food vendors met Lowes Foods category managers Wednesday at City Hall.
Jim Fair
Lowes Foods set up a one-stop shot for potential vendors to meet the company's marketers, Department of Agriculture marketing, ways to distribute their goods and hear testimonials from successful local producers.
The newest grocery store opening in Greer in early fall invited 30 vendors to City Hall to discuss their products being considered to become part of the store across from Riverside High School.
“We want to be hyper local and Greer made as much as possible when the store opens,” Kelly Davis of Lowes Foods told GreerToday.com.
Lowes Foods representatives, marketers and Sonny Dickson, Department of Agriculture marketing representative were at City Hall to explain the process of being a vendor with Lowes and its distributor.
“We pre-vetted the people we invited,” Davis said. “We wanted them to meet with our category managers. It was a one-stop shop for local vendors to let them know what we do for them.”
Davis said Lowes Foods emphasizes local growers and food manufacturers as much for new products as putting a stake in the community to promote small businesses.
“Today was fantastic,” Davis said. “We are very excited about the diversity of the products. These people have a dream and they have passion.”
Kissy Stroup, from High Point, N.C., tried selling her “Little Black Dressing” to specialty and food stores for more than three years before Lowes Foods began putting it on the market.
“I’ve been with Lowes for one and a half years and I have four salad dressings,” Stroup said. She was invited to share her testimonial with the prospective vendors.
Stroup’s dressing was featured at the U.S. Open Golf Championship at Pinehurst, N.C., last year.
Stroup was in her car when she received the news Lowes Foods was going to offer her salad dressings. “All I could do was pull over to the side of the road and started to cry,” she said. “I was overwhelmed that I made it.”
Davis and her staff and contacts have been scouting the area at farmer’s markets trying to spot potential vendors. She was in on the initial of the Greer Farmers Market meeting last year at Stomping Grounds.
Vendors will learn within a month if they made the cut.