Meijer Seeks More Vendor Diversity
Meijer is expanding its third “Supplier Diversity” event to include more diversity in its service providers and products for its shelves. From March 29-31, the event will give U.S. businesses the opportunity to showcase their offerings to interested Meijer buyers and procurement teams.
Certified minority-, LGBTQ-, woman-, veteran- and disability-owned businesses with products or services in select categories can apply by Monday, Feb. 7 for consideration.
Diverse-owned brands with merchandise in the following retail categories can apply for the event:
- Beauty and personal care,
- OTC and wellness,
- General merchandise, and
- Grocery.
Meijer is also accepting submissions from diverse-owned business service providers offering the following goods and services:
- Inbound transportation carriers.
- Skilled trades for construction and facility maintenance.
- All business services (marketing, human resources, IT and financial).
- Supplies, packaging, signage and maintenance, repair and operations.
- Environmental, real estate and new site services.
- Store fixtures, manufacturing and warehousing equipment.
"Our supplier diversity efforts reach beyond just the brands customers see on our shelves," said Peter Whitsett, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing at Meijer, in a media release. "We aim to support diverse-owned businesses throughout our stores, from the products we offer to the signage we hang and the services that keep the stores running. That's why we're excited to include a broad range of business categories in this event."
Meijer is partnering with ECRM and RangeMe to host the retail products portion of the event through the company's ECRM Connect virtual platform. Suppliers of non-retail goods and services will register through STARS, an application hosted by Viva, another third-party partner.
Meijer teams will review applications and select the vendors they would like to meet virtually. Suppliers not chosen for the event will still be accessible through the RangeMe or STARS registration tools and may be revisited by Meijer buyers and business teams again in the future.