Chairman Mike Roach, president of Ben E. Keith Foods of Fort Worth, TX, and John M. Gray, IFDA president and ceo, presented the award to Randell K. Smith, senior vice president of sales & marketing, Food Service Distribution at Tyson Foods.
Each calendar year, IFDA surveys its distributor membership to rate the performance of supplier companies within the foodservice channel in five key business areas. These include how effectively the companies convey product information, work with the distributor sales force, and communicate advertising and promotional information. The companies are also judged on the quality of sales training material and the availability of company representatives for handling account issues. The supplier companies considered in the survey are members of IFDA through the association's "Partners" program. Overall, there were 41 Partner companies participating with IFDA during the 2003 cycle.
"These are day to day business issues that take a great deal of attention by suppliers and our goal in presenting this award is to recognize truly exceptional performance," stated John Gray. "The survey is measured by two factors. The first is the total number of votes that a company receives in being ranked as one of a distributor's top five suppliers. The second is a rating of the supplier company's performance on a 1 to 5 scale within the five key areas. Based on the voting of our distributor members, Tyson Foods shows a very high commitment in supporting their products within the marketplace and are very responsive to customer needs."
For the first time, IFDA also recognized the second and third ranking companies from the survey: McCain Foods USA, which ranked second, and General Mills Bakeries and Foodservice, which ranked third.
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