Festival Foods’ Marlin Greenfield Named Wis. Grocers Assoc.’s Grocer of the Year

Marlin Greenfield, who recently retired as Skogen Festival Foods’ senior operations leader, was named Wisconsin Grocers Association’s 2019 Grocer of the Year at a surprise ceremony earlier this week. Greenfield was nominated for the honor by Mark Maloney of Russ Davis Wholesale.

Mark Skogen, Festival Foods president and CEO, said that Greenfield is among the most influential associates in Festival’s 71-year history and that “much of what we now know as hallmarks of Festival Foods began with Marlin.” For most of his Festival career, Greenfield was chief operations officer before transitioning to senior operations leader in 2015, which provided him flexibility to serve Festival in a pre-retirement role as a mentor and support leader for Festival Foods’ store operations teams. He officially retired in 2018.

Greenfield served on the WGA board of directors for eight years and was honored in 2015 with the Wisconsin Grocers Care Political Action Award, which recognized his many efforts to advance the grocery industry in the state.

The WGA is the Wisconsin food industry’s trade association with more than 750 members, and the Grocer of the Year Award is its most prestigious award. Presented annually, the award is given to a WGA member who makes significant contributions to the industry and community. Marlin Greenfield will receive his formal award Oct. 2 at the Grocers Innovation Expo at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells.

Independent grocer and employee-owned Festival Foods operates 32 stores across Wisconsin.