Big Y Promotes 3rd-Generation Family Members
The board of directors of Big Y Foods Inc. has promoted two third-generation D’Amour family members: Colin M. D’Amour is now senior director of Big Y Express Gas & Convenience Stores division, and his brother Christian P. D’Amour is currently director of e-commerce. Both appointments represent new and growing divisions of the company. Both D’Amours report to Richard D. Bossie, SVP of operations and customer experience.
In his new role, Colin oversees store operations, sight selection and sight acquisition, and has day-to-day responsibility for product procurement, including fuel, for the division, which currently consists of 12 Big Y Express locations, with four more planned for the coming year. Previously, Colin was senior manager of procurement on Big Y’s real estate and development team, as well as a member of the real estate committee on which he remains involved in evaluating viable expansion opportunities across all of the grocer’s operating formats. Additionally, he oversees various programs and initiatives with Topco Associates, a Elk Grove Village, Illinois-based based member-owned cooperative.
Colin began working as a service clerk at Big Y Supermarkets in 1998, at the age of 14, and subsequently held several such roles as produce clerk, warehouse selector and construction/remodel store projects coordinator. He also completed Big Y’s Supermarket 101 training program. Colin was also in the U.S. Marines Corps from 2007 to 2014, rising to the rank of captain and serving in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. After leaving active duty, he returned to Big Y and entered its store director training program, ultimately working as a store director at locations in Pittsfield and Lee, Massachusetts, before being selected as a corporate center store sales manager until 2019.
Christian’s new role gives him oversight of Big Y’s e-commerce platform, which currently includes relationships with Instacart for grocery home deliveries and DoorDash for prepared meal home deliveries. As well as these services, he will launch Big Y’s MyPicks Online ordering. With MyPicks, customers will be able to order their groceries online for curbside pickup at their preferred store or for home delivery. MyPicks will make use of a fully automated grocery fulfillment center attached to the Chicopee, Massachusetts, Big Y. Using cutting-edge robotics, the 12,000-square-foot center will pick as many as 7,000 online orders a day for delivery to customers.
In common with Colin, Christian joined Big Y at the age of 14 as a service clerk. After a stint after college as a sales and marketing representative for a Providence, Rhode Island-based insurance company, he came back to Big Y as a store director trainee in 2014, going on to work as a store director in the Southampton and Wilbraham, Massachusetts, stores before being tapped as store manager at Big Y wine and liquor banner Table & Vine’s flagship location in West Springfield, Massachusetts. In 2019, Christian became a district sales and merchandising mentor for a 15-store district, in which capacity he was responsible for all sales, merchandising and store team development across all departments, while continuing to oversee Table & Vine flagship operations.
Colin and Christian are grandsons of Big Y co-founder Gerald E. D’Amour, and sons of president and CEO Charles L. D’Amour.
One of the largest independently owned supermarket chains in New England, Springfield, Massachusetts-based Big Y operates 85 locations throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut, including 71 supermarkets, Fresh Acres Market, Table & Vine Fine Wines and Liquors, and 12 Big Y Express gas and convenience locations, with almost 12,000 employees. The company is No. 72 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2020 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.
