Giant Eagle Former President Joins Mercatus
Grocery veteran John Lucot has joined Mercatus, a provider of grocery e-commerce solutions, as senior strategic advisor to the executive team. In this new role at Mercatus, Lucot will support retailer engagement initiatives, providing his deep grocery and industry knowledge to ensure the success of the Mercatus client community and further advancement of Mercatus’ cloud offerings.
Lucot previously spent 42 years at Giant Eagle where he served as president and COO before his 2016 retirement. Lucot also served as a member of Topco Holdings Board of Directors and was named Chairman of the Board in 2016. A longtime member of the FMI — the Food Industry Association Board of Directors, Lucot continues to serve on various industry and charitable boards.
“Already a leader in its space, Mercatus is continuing to build on its reputation as a trusted e-commerce partner to the grocery industry,” said Lucot. “The platform, its broad functionality and the company’s rapid pace of innovation is impressive. I look forward to leveraging my operations experience and insights as a retail executive to help ensure Mercatus clients have the mission-critical solutions they need to connect to, retain and profit from their online customers.”
In the last 12 months, consumers have shifted dramatically to using online channels to do their grocery shopping due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This pattern shows no sign of slowing down based on research sponsored by Mercatus and conducted by Brick Meets Click. The U.S. online grocery market finished March 2021 with $9.3 billion in sales. This represents a 43% jump in sales, versus a year ago when sales were $6.5 billion, with curbside pickup attracting the largest share of monthly shoppers at 53%.
“At a time of such rapid channel growth, having someone like John – a proven leader in the grocery industry with years of retail business acumen – will be extremely valuable to Mercatus and our clients,” said Sylvain Perrier, president and CEO, Mercatus. “From his long, successful career at Giant Eagle, to his impact as a board member at a number of industry organizations, John is engaging, knowledgeable and insightful. I’m looking forward to working closely with him, as is my executive team, as we address the most relevant digital commerce needs of grocery retailers quickly and clearly.”
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Mercatus enables retailers to create authentic digital shopping experiences with solutions to drive shopper engagement, grow share of wallet and profitability, and quickly adapt to changes in consumer behavior. The Mercatus Integrated Commerce platform is used by such retailers Weis Markets, Save Mart brands, Brookshire’s Grocery Co. brands, WinCo Foods, Smart & Final and others.
Giant Eagle operates more than 470 stores throughout western Pennsylvania, Ohio, northern West Virginia, Maryland and Indiana. The company is No. 39 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2020 list of the top food retailers in North America.
