PLANO, Texas, Jan. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Miss Vickie's® names AJ Shear of DiBella's Subs as the grand prize winner of the brand's PartnerChip program, earning the small business a $50,000 prize. The announcement celebrates the culmination of the program, launched last year by Miss Vickie's and PepsiCo Foodservice, to support small- and medium-size foodservice operators in addressing their biggest business challenges.
While Miss Vickie's has grown tremendously over the past 10 years, it continues its commitment to community and wanted to reaffirm the importance of nurturing local businesses. With this in mind, the PartnerChip program set out to equip store operators with the tools they need to continue growing thriving enterprises.
In May 2019, Miss Vickie's kicked off the PartnerChip program by identifying six small business finalists, each hailing from a different part of the U.S., to receive funding for and education on digital media initiatives – a tactic proven to drive traffic. PartnerChip finalists include:
- Nate Gilbert, Deli Delicious, a premium deli sandwich shop with locations around California (California)
- AJ Shear, DiBella's, a family-run sub shop that was started in Rochester, NY (Great Lakes)
- Mike Arthur, Wingo's, a DC-based wings shop (Mid-Atlantic)
- Frank Lara, Chompie's, a family-run New York Style Deli and bagel bakery (Mountain)
- Kelly Bennett, Ruthie's Food Truck, a Dallas-based food truck operation serving grilled cheese sandwiches (South)
The brand and PepsiCo Foodservice hosted the finalists at a Small Business Leader Summit at Frito-Lay headquarters on October 3-4. The finalists engaged in digital and social learnings from PepsiCo executives as well as the company's best-in-class partners like Google during the two-day summit. Through key learnings, all six finalists received hands on education in driving traffic across digital and social, learning directly from the experts. They also received a crash course in the PepsiCo Foodservice Digital Lab, a first-of-its-kind suite of capabilities built to connect foodservice operators with the companies, services, insights, and solutions best-suited for their specific digital and online needs. The Lab connects customers with the latest technology and consumer trends impacting the industry, by combining PepsiCo's wealth of knowledge with cutting edge insights.
"Miss Vickie's PartnerChip program is a project of love – we want to set all of our partners up for success," said Arcely Moreno-Mosier, senior director of marketing, PepsiCo Foodservice Foods Division. "It doesn't stop here, it's part of the commitment we have to helping our PepsiCo Foodservice customers grow by sharing the best of our capabilities with them. We want to hear how they're doing in six months and how we can continue to help them grow their businesses."
Following the event, each finalist leveraged the learnings from the summit and prepared their own digital media plans. From there, a distinguished panel of judges evaluated their plans and chose the most compelling to receive an additional $50,000 towards their business' growth.
DiBella's started as a small, family-run business almost a century ago with a reputation for quality, value and consistency that gradually evolved into an Italian import store and deli. Over time, DiBella's moved away from importing, turning instead to time-honored baking techniques that would produce the classic sub roll for which they're famous. Today, that small, family-run business is 46 stores in six states, still specializing in what they are known for: Quality, exceptional service and awesome bread.
"Challenges in the restaurant industry are universal," said AJ Shear, director of marketing for DiBella's. "What's unique is that PepsiCo Foodservice and Miss Vickie's are putting an emphasis on getting us the tools and resources to deal with those challenges. Our learnings from the summit and the $50,000 award will go a long way to help us continue to build our business."
For more information about the PartnerChip finalist and our program, please visit www.missvickies.com.
About Frito-Lay North America
Frito-Lay North America is the $16 billion convenient foods division of PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEP), which is headquartered in Purchase, NY. Learn more about Frito-Lay at the corporate website, http://www.fritolay.com/ and on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/fritolay.
About PepsiCo
PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated more than $64 billion in net revenue in 2018, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana. PepsiCo's product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including 22 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.
Guiding PepsiCo is our vision to Be the Global Leader in Convenient Foods and Beverages by Winning with Purpose. "Winning with Purpose" reflects our ambition to win sustainably in the marketplace and embed purpose into all aspects of the business. For more information, visit www.pepsico.com.
