Unitas recruits ex-Nisa head of retail Victoria Lockie as retail director

Unitas Wholesale has announced that its new retail director is Victoria Lockie, former head of retail at Nisa.

Unitas’s new retail director Victoria Lockie with managing director John Kinney.

Lockie spent 12 years leading the Nisa Retail field team, supporting stores in the UK and Ireland. Before that she worked at Costcutter for more than 25 years, latterly as head of customer services.

In addition, Lockie is an ambassador for Diversity in Wholesale, Women in Wholesale, GroceryAid and WiHTL Women to Watch 2024. For many years she has also supported the Association of Convenience Stores’ campaigns and activities, including the recent Shopkind campaign.

In her new role, she will be instrumental in the continued development of the Plan for Profit category management scheme, the group’s retail and wholesale promotional programmes, and the roll-out of the Local Living own-brand range.

Unitas Wholesale managing director John Kinney said: “We are delighted to have Victoria leading the next phase of the implementation of our retail strategy. She is the perfect choice to continue our growth in retail, supporting our members in building an attractive symbol group offering and expanding the reach of their retail clubs.”

Lockie commented: “I am really excited to be joining Unitas. The group provides such a vital service to both independent wholesalers and retailers. It’s a tough time for independent retailers at the moment, and the promotions, category advice and value own-brand range we have to offer are all vital to help our independent retailers compete in today’s marketplace.

“Unitas hosts some of the biggest, best and importantly entrepreneurial wholesalers and I am looking forward to working with these members, in partnership with our suppliers, to drive our retail agenda forward.”

Unitas Wholesale’s Retail Plus members have enjoyed enhanced benefits over the last 18 months, taking advantage of the group’s ability to negotiate enhanced trading terms and strong promotional programmes by utilising its scale as the UK largest independent buying group. According to Unitas, members have outperformed the market in most key categories, resulting in record returns on their engagement in the centrally-negotiated schemes.

The group’s retail operation was recently praised by suppliers, who chose Unitas Wholesale as the best Retail Wholesaler in the 2024 Advantage Report.