GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Jenn Martin oversees the Fresh departments at Meijer with the awareness that shoppers’ impressions of the food color their entire experience at the supercenter.

As vice president of fresh merchandising, Martin collaborates with her team members and the retailer’s operations partners to deliver upon the key pillars of freshness, quality and value across Meijer’s produce, deli, bakery, meat, seafood and floral offerings.

“My team does this by offering best-in-class produce quality and assortment by partnering with innovative growers as well as local farmers,” Martin says. “We differentiate by offering a wide variety of meat and seafood, including meat that is still cut in stores, and we stay customer-focused through our ever-growing offerings of ready-to-heat and ready-to-eat products, and excellent own-brand offerings across our deli and bakery departments. We know that our customers value quality and price, and we are pleased that we can offer the best of both to help them feed their families while bringing home innovative solutions.”

Jenn Martin

Meijer, which opened its first supercenter in 1962, became one of the first retailers to bring groceries into the department store setting, launching the now-ubiquitous one-stop shopping experience.

Martin, who joined Meijer in 2012, says her personal mission statement is “to inspire others to be their best, authentic self and see the value in helping those around them.”

Says Martin, “The Fresh team in its entirety has been highly focused on improving our on-shelf availability through working with our vendor partners to drive accountability, apply data and analytics to enhance our assortments, and partner with our operations teams to utilize newer systems and processes to make our shelf more productive. We are pleased with the improvements we have made to ensure we are offering our customers what they want, when they want it, since we know that a customer’s experience in the Fresh department will influence how they feel about their entire shopping experience. Our entire Meijer team has also pivoted to drove omnichannel sales and seamlessly transitioned our rewards program in 2023 to drive even more loyalty and provide greater value to our customers.”

Martin delights in being part of a team capable of quickly taking an idea to implementation. “Due to the nimbleness of the team, we’ve had several examples of quick tests into rollouts to drive sales, improve fresh shrink, and contribute to the bottom line, while keeping the customer at the forefront of the decision-making process.”