Category: Edible Arrangements

Edible Arrangements was named one of America’s fastest-growing privately held businesses in America by Inc. Magazine and has been ranked first in its category by Entrepreneur Magazine’s Annual “Franchise 500” Ranking for the past seven consecutive years. In 2011, Edible Arrangements was ranked 9th on Forbes.com ‘Top Franchises for the Money” listing. In February of 2009, Tariq was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the International Franchise Association, whose members include more than 1,300 franchise systems, 11,000 franchisees and 500 suppliers. In June 2009 Tariq was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 Award in the Retail and Consumer Products category in Metro New York.

  • Company Growth
  • Edible Arrangements
  • Franchise
  • president
  • Retail
  • Rob Price
  • Tariq Farid

Today it is my pleasure to introduce Robert Price as the new President of Edible Arrangements®. This is an incredibly exciting time for the company. As we celebrate our 15th anniversary, we also are embarking on an era that promises dramatic growth opportunities. A lot of our focus over the past year has been on putting the pieces in place that will allow us to take full advantage of these new opportunities. The addition of Rob, with his experience and expertise, significantly enhances the talented leadership team we have in place.

Rob comes to Edible Arrangements with more than two decades of marketing and brand building experience at some of America’s most highly regarded retailers. He most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for CVS/pharmacy, where he led all marketing, advertising, sales promotion, e-commerce, customer insights, store design and customer loyalty programs for the 7,400-store pharmacy chain.

During Rob’s tenure at CVS/pharmacy, the company:

  • Grew retail revenue over $20 Billion.
  • Increased membership in the company’s loyalty program to 69 million households.
  • Drove personalization through new mobile tools, more effective e-mail marketing and the first-of-its-kind personalized digital weekly advertising circular.
  • Nearly doubled online sales and drove a tenfold increase in mobile engagement.
  • Introduced a new store prototype with data-driven variations based on local market conditions.

Rob’s experience also includes leadership positions with convenience retailer Wawa Food Markets and the H-E-B Grocery chain. He also worked for the parent company of Hardees and Roy Rogers restaurants. Rob began his career at The Monitor Company, a management consulting firm.

Rob graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Applied Economics and earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School with high academic distinction. He is also a member of the 2012 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute, an honor given to just 21 people in the country each year.

On a personal note, Rob and his wife, Sue, have three sons — Sam (16), Max (14) and Jack (12) – and recently celebrated their 20th anniversary.

Rob shares my passion for the importance of creating a culture of service, innovation and collaboration. Like me, he has retail in his blood. His grandparents and great grandparents were shopkeepers, and his personal retail experience includes time on the front line. I have no doubt that Rob’s experience and skills are a perfect match for our leadership needs as we embark on this exciting new era of growth.

Welcome to the Edible Arrangements family, Rob.

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  • franchising
  • growth
  • innovation
  • The Street

In this lively interview with Jill Malandrino of The Street, I discuss the importance of ongoing innovation and how we grew to 1,200 retail centers with sales of $500 million in just 15 years. We also talk about what has worked for Edible Arrangements®, customer feedback and what we are focusing on going forward. See the complete Tariq Farid interview here.

 

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Coming Soon to a Mall Near You: The Edible to Go Location Is Here!

  • Edible Arrangements
  • Edible Arrangements Locations
  • Edible Arrangements Mall Locations
  • edible to go
  • Franchise
  • Tariq Farid
Edible to Go Location

This is a very exciting time for Edible Arrangements. It gives me great pride to announce the launch of the first Edible to Go Location. Designed to be kiosk-like installations that will reinforce our brand in the public eye and provide quick, delicious and healthy treats to consumers on the go in places like malls, airports, etc., the Edible to Go Location represents a thrilling evolutionary step in our growth.

At this moment, our first Edible to Go Location is in full swing at Mall St. Matthews in Louisville, Kentucky, opening its counters to eager new guests. I want to sincerely thank everyone who helped make this incredibly important dream a reality!

We’ve worked very long and hard to achieve this goal of making our great products available to guests in high traffic locations — where literally thousands of people will be able to see and experience our amazing fresh fruit treats and Guest service every day.

Edible to Go Location

It took a huge team effort on the part of our employees, our vendors and, especially, our outstanding franchise partners Ben and Amanda Hiner to be able to accomplish this feat. I know it will be the beginning of an amazing new day for Edible Arrangements – comparable to the founding of our company itself! – creating tremendous new opportunities for our brand and all our franchise partners, on whom all of our success depends.

There is much more work to be done as we take this wonderful new concept forward from here. But as I mark this occasion, I also want to recognize all the outstanding work that made it happen. Here’s to the first of many terrific Edible to Go Locations on the way. Watch for one coming soon to a mall near you!

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Fruit Summit: Getting Face Time with Franchisees

  • Edible Arrangements
  • Edible Arrangements Franchises
  • Edible Arrangments Franchisees
  • Franchise System
  • Fruit Summit
  • Tariq Farid
Fruit Summit

Without our franchisees, there would literally be no Edible Arrangements International franchise system. It’s so important to remember that, and always work with franchisees to make our company the best that it can be. They’re the lifeblood of what we do, and it’s only through keeping in touch with them that we continue to grow and meet their needs.

That’s the reason we instituted what we call our Fruit Summit last year, and ever since, we’ve been utilizing Fruit Summit to strengthen that partnership like never before. We just held our latest Fruit Summit here in our corporate office in Wallingford, and it reminded me just why it’s such a crucial element to our success.

Fruit Summit

A select group of franchisees is invited to participate, and join us here for several days of discussion, debate, and sharing of ideas. We get their feedback on new initiatives and concepts, learning what works and what doesn’t work. They share their experiences in the field with us, making sure we never lose touch with what’s going on out there in the “real world”. They also get to learn exactly how things work on the corporate end. Putting it simply, it’s the perfect opportunity to keep us all on the same page, and a valuable, educational experience for all of us.

Fruit Summit helps us to determine the course we’re charting. It keeps us grounded, and gives me a chance to interact directly with our franchisees, which I always appreciate being able to do. We’ve got one more Fruit Summit planned for later this year, and I’m already looking forward to it. I have no doubt our franchisees will WOW me, just like they always do.

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A Decade of Excellence

  • Deb Kostisin

A decade ago, Deb Kostisin signed a franchise agreement with us to open the first Edible Arrangements store in the state of Rhode Island. This was long before the brand had become the household name it is today. In other words, Deb was taking a bold chance on something that was still in the early stages. I’m proud today to see that her daring has paid off, and also proud to say that she recently renewed that original Providence store.

From the time she originally opened the store, Deb’s goal was to have her husband Ted run the operations. At the time, he was working very long hours managing a large restaurant which was extremely busy. After signing for their second store, Ted decided to quit the restaurant business and join Edible Arrangements full time. Thanks to Deb it was, as he described it, the best decision he ever made.

We have some of the most amazing franchisees in our system, and Deb is way up there near the top. I can still remember our meeting more than ten years ago at a diner, when I first talked to her about buying a franchise. To see her where she is today, with four stores—including our 1000th store in Cranston, Rhode Island–is truly gratifying. We literally couldn’t do it without franchisees like the Kostisins.

In 2011, they were named Edible Arrangement’s Franchisee of the Year at our annual Convention. Seeing their success over the years, including the renewal of their original store, it’s very easy to understand why.

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