Giant Food brings on company veteran as chief merchant

Dive Brief:

Giant Food has named Tonya Herring as chief merchant, effective immediately, the grocery chain announced Tuesday.
Herring, a former senior Giant executive who most recently worked for Peapod Digital Labs, will be responsible for all merchandising strategy and execution for the Ahold Delhaize-owned grocer.
Giant is tapping Herring to oversee how it presents products to shoppers as the company sharpens its efforts to appeal to consumers bent on saving money when shopping for groceries.

Dive Insight:

Herring is stepping into the chief merchant’s role at Giant at a pivotal time for the grocery chain, which, like other operators of traditional supermarkets, has been striving to position itself as a value-oriented retailer as it faces intense competition from low-price leaders like Aldi and Walmart.

Giant’s recent efforts to woo cost-focused shoppers have included leveraging the company’s loyalty program to incentivize shoppers to buy private label goods and fresh foods — moves company officials have said are intended to showcase Giant’s commitment to helping people save money while taking care of their health. Giant also runs a program that allows shoppers to use a fixed number of loyalty points for essentials such as milk and eggs.

Notably, Herring’s background includes a stint guiding the commercial development of Ahold Delhaize USA’s digital capabilities as senior vice president of omnichannel development for Peapod Digital Labs, which provides technology-based services to all of the company’s U.S. retail chains. Ahold Delhaize recently folded that division, which formerly was a standalone unit, into a new unified support group for the Dutch retailer’s U.S. chains.

Herring began her role at Peapod Digital Labs in early 2022 after serving for about four years as senior vice president of merchandising for Giant, according to her profile on LinkedIn. In that position, Herring was in charge of a range of key functions for the mid-Atlantic chain, including category management, pharmacy, pricing, promotion and merchandising planning, the company said Tuesday.

Before joining Giant, Herring spent about three years working as senior vice president of merchandising, non-perishables, for Ahold Delhaize. Earlier, she worked for Safeway in a variety of roles over about 24 years, culminating in an assignment as vice president of category development, perishables.

Giant Food operates 164 supermarkets in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C.