Retail 2020: Surging Ahead in Challenging Times
Designed specifically for specialty food and kitchenware retail industry, Retail2020 provides tools to help retailers thrive in an increasingly difficult market. At the Bently Reserve, Specialty Independent Retailers, Vendors, and Industry Experts meet for two intensive days in a retreat environment focused on the nuts-and-bolts strategies for maintaining growth and profitability and a culture of fun and customer service…

Retail 2020: The Future of Specialty Retailing
San Francisco, Calif., August 4 – 6, 2009 (Prior to the Gourmet Housewares Show, August 8 – 10).

Hotel Reservations
The hotel for this event is Le Meridian.

For reservations:
Book online: http://events.ambassadors.com/ret09 (available dates online are August 3- 7, 2009)
By phone: (888) 267-0943
By email: retail2020@ambassadors.net

For questions on registration and group rates please contact Brittany Davies at brittany.davies@nielsen.com or at 646.654.5883


Exhibit Floor is Main Conference Area

Tuesday Aug. 4
7 p.m. Welcome Reception - Lobby of The Bently Reserve

Wednesday Aug. 5
7:30 a.m. Breakfast with Vendors

8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Welcome & Keynote Speaker Surpassing Expectations: How You Do…What You Do Bob Livingston, Founder and CEO of REL Communications From his experience as a senior sales executive with Unilever and The Nielsen Company, Bob Livingston has refined a roadmap for delivering outstanding customer service. In his book “How You Do…What You Do,” Bob helps executives re-imagine their corporate culture as one of purpose and service. Livingston’s proven roadmap for achieving service excellence differentiates your store from the competition, as Bob shows you how to develop and live your purpose and values as a company. Bob helps you build a service-oriented culture of continuous improvement that focuses on your customers’ needs and creates a passion for service excellence. This inspirational approach to service builds customer loyalty and job satisfaction on all sides.

9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Exhibit Floor – Vendor Break

10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Cheaper & Better: Profitable Retailing in an I-Pod Age: Empowering Your Team
For 27 years, Ian Baldwin has helped independent, family-owned specialty Garden and Home Retailers make more money with less stress, focusing both on nuts-and-bolts of finances, and store layout and display. Here, Ian shares his insights on selling profitably in any intensely seasonal business, and addresses the challenges of re-imagining how we sell the emerging next generation of consumers. Follow multiple case studies from Ian’s Sales and Merchandising Best Practices developed through training with legendary retailers like Sickles Market (NJ), Stauffer’s of Kissel Hill (PA) and Roger’s Gardens in CA.

11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Exhibit Floor – Vendor Break

Noon to 1:15 p.m. – Lunch & Keynote The Ownership Quiotent
In his new book The Ownership Quotient, with co-authors and Harvard Business School Professors James Heskett and Earl Sasser, Joe Wheeler argues that the path to better performance starts with achieving a level of employee commitment he describes as “ownership”. It may be the single most important idea you pay attention to this year.

1:30 to 2:00 p.m. –. Exhibits - Exhibit Floor – Vendor Break
Plus scheduled Retail to Vendor Sessions

2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m – Design Workshops
Concurrent with Breakout Best Practice Sessions and scheduled Retail to Vendor Sessions

3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Retailer to Retailer Sessions
Five Break-Out roundtable sessions focused on Best Practice models with topics ranging from Store Design to Bottom-Line Financials.

6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Exhibit & Dinner Reception:
Artisans, vendors and chefs gather to taste and demonstrate products that you can carry in your stores – share with our sponsors as they prepare tastings, pairings, cross-merchandising, recipe ideas and more.

THURSDAY Aug. 6
8:00 a.m. Continental Breakfast with Vendors

9:00 a.m. Keynote: Making the Consumer Connection – Phil Lempert
Phil's up-to-the-minute industry analyses and trend spotting will set the stage for his predictions which will impact specialty wholesale and retail in the next months, year, and decade. 
The consumer shifts in behavior and shopping habits over the past year has created a new paradigm for understanding how people buy specialty foods, in this session you will learn how to leverage these learnings along with new technologies to meet the needs of your current and most desired shoppers in ways that were recently available only to Fortune 500 companies.

10 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Session: Phil Lempert Consumer Panel
Engage shoppers first hand as Phil moderates an unrehearsed, no-holds barred discussion with consumers who tell it like it is - what they like, what they don't like and what they want more of from Specialty Food retailers and brands.

10:30 to 11:30 a.m.: The Perfect Storm: Solutions for Today’s Challenges
Expert Retailers and Industry Insiders discuss what tools are necessary to weather today’s challenging economic climate. They reveal how they built their own business, tools they’ve used to succeed and delve into their own visions and missions.
Moderator: Bob Livingston

11:30 p.m. to Noon - Exhibit Floor – Vendor Break
Noon to 1 p.m. – Social Networking: Brand Recognition in a Viral World

1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
Five Break-Out roundtable sessions focused on Best Practice models with topics ranging from Marketing to Social Networking.

3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Harold Lloyd - Riding the Wave of CHANGE
“Don’t rock the boat. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Let sleeping dogs lie. Who moved my cheese?” All familiar phrases bemoaning the most fundamental law of nature… CHANGE is inevitable. So, why bemoan CHANGE if it’s coming our way anyway? This session explains how to leverage the inevitability of change. Harold Lloyd highlights the two change agents underway today and demonstrates how to get your team on board and ride the waves of CHANGE. For vendors and retailers alike, this session and strategy is of paramount importance.

5:00 p.m. Conference Closes

About Last Year’s Retail 2020
“My dream was to design a conference where members of the specialty food and kitchenware retail industry -- from owners to floor personnel managers -- would gather in a retreat-like setting, and take the time to access the road map of their businesses. I wanted to give them a place -- not only to learn -- but to disconnect from the everyday and connect with their peers and educators, who would inspire new directions and ideas that they could bring home and implement immediately. – Michelle Moran, Editor-in-Chief, The Gourmet Retailer

Here’s what attendees had to say about the August 2008 conference:

“There's nowhere else to get this kind of information...”
- Mary Moore, The Cook's Warehouse, Atlanta, Georgia

“Every session gave me concepts that can and will help our business...”
- Dave West, Rolling Pin Kitchen Emporium, Brandon, Florida

“What a great mix of retailers and manufacturers!”
- Janis Friedman, Terraillon, Raleigh, North Carolina

“Retail 2020 gave us an important opportunity to see the industry from a very different perspective.”
- Gary Leavitt, Kitchen Resource, Salt Lake City, Utah

“This conference is exactly what the industry needed.”
- Robert Coviello, HTI Buying Group, Rochester, New Hampshire

Click here for a full recap of the August 2008 Conference