Meet Future Leader in Convenience: David Cole
BEAVERTON, Ore. — Plaid Pantry CEO Jonathan Polonsky first heard about David Cole from his daughter, who met him through mutual college friends. Cole graduated with honors in economics from the University of Oregon and, at the time, was working at Colombia Distributing as a beer buyer and logistics coordinator.
He showed interest in Plaid Pantry and once the c-store chain had an opening for a category manager, Polonsky’s daughter reached out to Cole. He started with the company as a general merchandise and fresh food category manager in July 2017.
Coming from beverage distribution, the retail side of the industry was new to Cole, but he worked with other category managers and the chain’s operations team to learn about the opportunities in his categories. After several months of talking to customers and trusted vendors, he identified the opportunity of expanding the grab-and-go offering in the chain’s 108 stores. Specifically, he identified the need for an additional 4-foot reach-in deli case, and lobbied to have them placed in all stores to allow for a better mix of products. Several months after his proposal, Plaid Pantry installed an additional cooler in 70 of its 108 locations, with the cornerstone of the new product mix being a new sandwich offering.
Cole also worked directly with the vendor to redesign how the sandwiches would be packaged, and upgraded all the ingredients — from the bread to the condiments. As a result, the chain increased the price of the sandwiches and saw a 22 percent increase in sandwich gross margin dollars.
“Portlanders love their city and the localness of their food offerings. I keep this concept top of mind as I curate our packaged food assortments, and work with local companies as often as I can to bring their products into our stores,” Cole told CSNews. “We’ve seen great success in this venture with partners such as PDX Sandwiches, which represent our flagship sandwich line, as well as our PDX Muffin Tops, created by a locally treasured French bakery, Marsee Baking. Through these efforts, we’ve seen a healthy 10 percent sales growth in our fresh food category.”
During his tenure, Cole also has analyzed Plaid Pantry’s general merchandise sets, eliminating dozens of underperforming items and replacing them with more relevant ones, which has produced double-digit growth. He continues, through trial and error, to add additional enhancements to this category, and is optimistic he will grow it even more in the future.