Over 600 attendees will fill the conference hall at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami, Florida from 2-4 March.
The first day features an address on the state of the industry from the NCA’s Larry Wilson and Leslie Liss of merchandizing specialists dunnhumbyUSA.
The NCA also welcomes back Jeremy Gutsche, CEO of TrendHunter, who will talk about confectionery trends and how to win tomorrow’s consumer.
Tuesday’s sessions include retail insights from C-store expert Brad Call of independent convenience store chain Maverik and Greg Brown of UPS Retail Sector will talk about confectionery in the online sales environment.
The final day features speeches from John Ratzenberger of Toy Story fame, where he voiced Hamm the Piggy Bank, and football coach Lou Holtz.
See here for a full schedule of events.
The conference also pays tribute to NCA president Larry Graham, who will retire in June 2014 after 21 years in the industry.
At the event, the NCA will debut a series of events dedicated to young people – those in their 40s or under – including a poolside reception and a professional development session.
We’ll be asking attendees about the latest industry trends, trade relations with Russia amid the crisis in Ukraine, sugar reform and the impact of cocoa shortages.