BENTONVILLE, AR - With Executive Vice President of the U.S. Grocery Division Jack Sinclair retiring at the end of this week, current California-based Senior Vice President Tony Airoso will become a Senior Vice President of Global Food Sourcing. Airoso currently runs the dairy and fresh-food strategy, and his promototion isn't the only change the company is making.

Wal-Mart continues to focus on improving its grocery area, having pledged to make groceries a big focus for the company last October, and then later that it was creating new senior leadership posts to focus on produce and meat in December.

“Food is a big part of what Wal-Mart has become,” Brian Yarbrough, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis, said in a Bloomberg Business report. “It is a big traffic driver.”

The company has seen rising costs for supplies and reductions on food-stamp benefits, according to Bloomberg Business, but Yarbrough said that getting food right could help.

“It’s lower margin, but you hope to sell more discretionary items while people are in there,” he said in the report. “That’s key for the longer term.”

Other changes in the shakeup include current Vice President of Global Food Sourcing Chuck Tilmon, becoming President of Fresh Charter Initiatives, Vice President of Frozen Foods Tyler Lehr now overseeing dairy products, and Senior Category Director in Frozen Foods Megan Crozier will replace Lehr’s current position.

According to Bloomberg, company employees were notified of these changes in two separate memos.

Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow to see what changes these executives will bring to Wal-Mart as they start their new positions. 

Wal-Mart