Wakefern’s Cheryl Macik receives service award

CHICAGO — The Food Marketing Institute has presented Cheryl Macik, director of consumer affairs for Wakefern, with its Esther Peterson Consumer Service Award, recognizing her dedication as a shopper advocate and her influence in serving and retaining Wakefern’s customer base across its ShopRite and Price Rite banners. 



Macik started at Wakefern more than 30 years ago as a frontline representative in what was then a fledgling consumer affairs department. Today, she serves as director of the department, overseeing a staff of 30, including ShopRite’s Customer Care Center and consumer research team. Under Macik’s direction, Wakefern’s Customer Care Center responds to nearly 200,000 customer contacts annually.


Macik has played a pivotal part in advancing consumer-centric programs over the last three decades, with a constant focus on consumer education, advocacy and health and wellness. Notably, Macik was instrumental in developing a protocol that utilized ShopRite’s loyalty card database to notify customers of a product recall; a procedure that has become an industry standard.

She also recognized early on that supermarkets had an opportunity to impact and influence consumer’s well-being through their food choices, and she was instrumental in hiring Wakefern’s first corporate dietitian and today, that same dietitian now heads an extensive retail program with more than 115 dietitians in ShopRite stores.