Jon Arons, Communications and Community Relations Manager at Giant Food, oversees PR and community relations for one of the Mid-Atlantic's most beloved grocery chains. In this episode of "Five Questions With..." he breaks down what it actually looks like to manage communications for a retailer that serves millions of families across 162 stores. From food recalls to brand health scores, Arons makes the case that trust isn't built in a crisis—it's built long before one ever arrives.
Key Topics Covered:
The First 24 Hours of a Food Recall: Arons walks through Giant Food's internal process for responding to recalls— and why getting accurate information before communicating publicly is just as important as moving fast.
Protecting and Measuring Consumer Trust: For a grocer with 90 years of history in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, trust is the ultimate currency, and Arons shares how Giant tracks it, measures it and works to restore it when something goes wrong.
Community Relations as a Crisis Tool: Arons explains how Giant's ongoing community partnerships—from hunger relief initiatives to sports sponsorships—become an unexpected communications asset when a crisis hits.
Making the Internal Case for Community Relations: With community relations as one of Giant's five strategic brand priorities, Arons shares how his team demonstrates its value to leadership beyond goodwill—including through brand health scores.
Personal Insights: Arons reveals what's always in his grocery cart—and yes, a surprise for his cat always makes the list.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.
Transcript:
Nicole Schuman: Welcome to "Five Questions With." I'm Nicole Schuman, Managing Editor at PRNEWS. It has been a wild news year for groceries—the costs, the recalls—so we've got a well-timed "Five Questions With" for you this month. We welcome Jon Arons, Communications and Community Relations Manager at Giant Food. And if you live in the D.C., Maryland, Virginia or Pennsylvania areas, you may be familiar with Giant as your grocery store—an entity which is so important to so many. Welcome, Jon!
Jon Arons: Thanks for having me.
Nicole Schuman: Question one—we're just going to get right to it. Food recalls have become almost routine news this year. There are cyclospora outbreaks, salmonella scares, store-brand products pulled from shelves. I think this week some glass was found in frozen fruit bars—yikes. When a recall hits, what does your communications response look like in the first 24 hours?
Jon Arons: As a food retailer, our biggest priority is the health and safety of our customers and our associates. Food recalls may originate with a manufacturer or another issue, but as the local retailer, we take immense responsibility in supporting food recalls. In a recall situation, you want speed—speed builds confidence that you're being timely—but accuracy protects trust. It's a balance of both. Our first priority is to meet with the teams that support this. In the first few hours, we're working with our food safety team, our merchandisers and store operations to ensure that we have accurate information before we start communicating publicly. We may see things in the news and it may start building, but unless that vendor or merchandiser is coming to us with confirmed information—for example, what Taylor Farms is saying— that's what's most important. Once we understand what's happening, we have a process in place that involves multiple channels to inform customers. Depending on the class of recall, something very serious like a Class One means we're instantly putting in-store signage where those items may be, pulling those items and signing what's going on. We put updates on our website, and if it's a major recall, we've even had to issue press releases to get information out to the media immediately or to correct information that's being put out. And then it becomes about monitoring—making sure customer care has everything they need, our social media team has the talking points they need and, if we have an agency partner, that they're monitoring and responding in a timely manner.
Nicole Schuman: That's interesting. I was wondering how the process works because obviously this is something you're prepared for and have dealt with before. It sounds like the actual brands and distributors are where you're getting your information from.
Jon Arons: Exactly. Once a manufacturer knows they have a product recall, we are their customer, so it's up to them to inform all of their customers. The end user is the consumer, but the manufacturer isn't necessarily communicating directly to that consumer—they're communicating to their customers, who are the food retailers. Then it's up to us to make sure any consumer who may have purchased that item is alerted. We have teams that specialize in this. We're able to track customer purchases and instantly get customer care on the phone to contact those customers. But it's important that we do it in a timely manner.
Nicole Schuman: Do you get questions from customers about recalls?
Jon Arons: We do—customers will reach out on social media and through customer care. With this recent lettuce situation, for example, people have been reaching out asking about our lettuce. Our lettuce doesn't come from Taylor Farms, so it's been a different experience for us this summer. But a few years ago, we had an instance with Boar's Head where every day we were making sure we were responding to customers—because it may just be an issue with that one brand or one product, but it impacts the entire category. Produce is down because of an outbreak whether we carry the recalled item or not.
Nicole Schuman: I know we're all hoping this goes away at some point soon. I haven't had a salad in a while!
Jon Arons: For me, I've been eating more salad than ever because we keep talking about it—and our salad comes from a great local brand that's grown indoors and hydroponically. I know for a fact that the Giant brand Nature's Promise Salad is excellent to eat.
Nicole Schuman: Good to know—noted! Alright, next question. Grocery stores occupy a unique trust position with consumers. People rely on you for their family's food. How do you protect that trust when something goes wrong, and how do you know when it's been restored?
Jon Arons: Trust is built long before a crisis occurs. It comes from consistently providing safe products, reliable service and being present in the communities we serve. This year is a special year—Giant Food is celebrating 90 years of service in the DMV. For nine decades, we have built that reputation of being a grocery store our community can count on. It starts with building relationships. We are embedded very deeply into the communities we serve. We have 162 stores around the region, and each one has its own uniquely special community that those associates have built with those customers. When a crisis does occur, you depend and rely on those relationships. When an issue arises, transparency is huge—accountability and action. Customers today expect businesses to be trustworthy, upfront and transparent, and that's something we consistently strive for. Customers don't necessarily expect perfection, but they expect honesty and responsiveness. A lot of what I've experienced is that an issue may be serious, but what exaggerates it is the lack of responsiveness—not getting back to someone within 24 hours. That's how you can actually avoid a lot of crises. We measure trust through customer feedback, which is enormous for us. Our brand president reviews every customer complaint and compliment given to the brand, whether through customer care or social media. We do a lot of sentiment monitoring with our PR agency and social community management agency and a lot of media coverage monitoring. Ultimately, trust is restored when our customers continue to shop at Giant. If something happened and they keep coming back, that means we still have their trust.
Nicole Schuman: Makes sense. Giant has leaned heavily into community relations—programs like the Better Neighbor platform, regional sports partnerships with Penn State, the Washington Capitals, Wizards, Mystics and Spirit and 90 Days of Giving for the 90th anniversary. How do those ongoing programs function as a communications asset, especially when you're navigating a crisis?
Jon Arons: I always say I'm one of the luckiest PR people in the industry because I get to manage both public relations and community relations—and they really do go hand in hand. For a lot of our sister brands in the network, PR and community relations are separate teams. For me, having both brings a lot of benefits when responding in a crisis, because community engagement isn't something we just turn on when things go wrong. It's work we do every day. Through our community partnerships and giving programs, our team has the responsibility of representing the brand in the fun, charitable, people-helping side of things—but we also have the responsibility of supporting our community partners, and those partners in return support Giant. Our commitment reflects nine decades of being in the community. Through initiatives like food as medicine, hunger relief partnerships and community charitable programming, we're demonstrating that our purpose extends beyond just selling groceries. Just like the kitchen is the heartbeat of the home, Giant is the heartbeat of the community. When a situation arrives, our team has built tremendous relationships with community partners who can come out and speak on our behalf. For example, we had a situation where people in a community were unsure what was happening with one of our stores—there was misinformation that it was closing when it wasn't. We tapped our relationships with community partners in that specific area, brought the key stakeholders together at the store and had an open, honest conversation so everyone knew what was actually happening. By having those partners and those relationships, we were able to get the right people in the right room, have the right conversation and avoid a whole lot of misinformation and chaos for absolutely no reason. Those relationships create credibility for us.
Nicole Schuman: Great. And that leads to my next question. Community relations is often treated as a "nice to have" rather than a strategic communications function. How do you make the case internally for its value?
Jon Arons: People want to shop at a place they feel is invested in their community. We are asking customers to pick us over more than 30 different retailers in this market. Price is a big reason people shop. Convenience is a big reason. Quality is a big reason. But as we look at millennials and Gen Z, the next generation wants to shop at a place they feel connected to, that supports them and their personal values. Community relations is important because it goes back to building strategic relationships. It's not just about how low our prices are or how great the apples are— it's about all the things Giant Food does for a customer, their neighbor and their community. One of the most important things we measure is our brand health, and one of those scores is how Giant fares in the community. Every time we do an important activation or show up at an event, we continue to see that score rise. It's become one of the strategic pillars of our brand — one of our five strategic priorities is to continue building brand loyalty, and a lot of that is done through community relations. Our leadership team understands that as a local retailer with the mission to be the most trusted and loved local retailer in our community, community relations is a building block of that, alongside health and wellness.
Nicole Schuman: Great. And now for our last question—the fun one. Since you work for a grocer, what's always in your cart when you shop?
Jon Arons: Before I even started working at Giant, I loved to grocery shop. I come from the hospitality and restaurant world and I love to cook. I can be a little regimented, but usually my cart has some staples. First, whatever fruit is in season—the nectarines this year have been phenomenal. Second, Nature's Promise ribeyes—I eat a lot of steak in the summertime because it's easier to grill. Third, something on sale—I'll go to the international aisle and find a condiment I've never tried before. I'm always either own-brand or on sale. This past weekend I got a Korean barbecue marinade I'm excited to try. Fourth, frozen fruit in addition to fresh fruit—I'm really into frozen mangoes right now. They melt in my mouth, and they're the perfect summertime treat. And fifth, something for my cat. Whether it's cat treats, cat food or a new toy I see in the aisle, I always have to get her something too because she's part of the family.
Nicole Schuman: Cats deserve treats too! Thank you so much for joining us, Jon. I appreciate the insight into the grocery industry and into community relations. We're so happy you could join us today.
Jon Arons: Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.