We have a fantastic new addition to our team with Victoria Lockie, former Head of Retail at Nisa, joining Unitas as Retail Director.

Victoria brings many years of experience in the independent convenience sector, including 12 years leading the Nisa Retail field team supporting stores in the UK and Ireland. She is an ambassador for Diversity in Wholesale, Women in Wholesale, GroceryAid, and WiHTL ‘Women to Watch 2024. or many years has heavily supported the Association of Convenience Stores including the more recent Shopkind campaign.

She will be instrumental in the continued development of the Plan for Profit category management scheme, our retail and wholesale promotional programmes, and the roll out of the Local Living own brand range.

Unitas MD John Kinney says: “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.”

Victoria adds: “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 retailer compete in the today’s marketplace. 

“Unitas host 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’ 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. Members have outperformed the market in most key categories, resulting in record returns on their engagement in the centrally-negotiated schemes.

Our retail operation was recently praised by suppliers, who chose the Unitas Support Centre as the best Retail Wholesaler in the 2024 Advantage Report.