Erewhon Market took home the top honor at ECRS‘ annual Ignite Retail Success Conference, held Aug. 2-5 in Nashville, Tennessee, where the retail automation company recognized retailers and partners across nine award categories.
The Retailer of the Year award, the conference’s highest honor, went to the Los Angeles-based grocer for its use of technology as a strategic advantage. ECRS cited Erewhon’s commitment to optimizing processes, improving visibility into its business and delivering an exceptional customer experience as reflecting “the spirit of intelligent retailing” the award celebrates.
The awards ceremony is a cornerstone of Ignite each year, recognizing retailers and partners whose leadership, innovation and collaboration strengthen the CATAPULT Community. According to ECRS, the awards celebrate organizations that not only achieve success themselves but help others succeed through knowledge sharing, mentorship, testing new innovations and contributing feedback.
| Ignite 2026 Award Recipients | |
|---|---|
| Lifelong Learner Awards | Joseph Kerekes, Basil Bandwagon Natural Market Amber McKinnon & John Akins II, Akins Fresh Market Carl Palmer, Clark’s Nutrition |
| CATAPULT Community Champion Award | The Turnip Truck |
| Lighthouse Award | Littleton Food Co-op |
| One of Us Awards | Jacob Howard, Farmer Joe’s Luis Torres Jr., Latin Market Development Retail Systems |
| “Together, We Win” Partner Awards | National Co-op Grocers The Beresford Company |
| Golden Ambassador Award | Cliff’s Country Market |
| True North Leader Award | Coborn’s Inc. |
| Retailer of the Year | Erewhon Market |
Nashville-based Turnip Truck Natural Market, this year’s Community Champion honoree, also hosted a series of retailer store tours during the conference, giving attendees a look at CATAPULT operating in a live retail environment.
The awards capped a record-breaking year for the conference, which drew retail professionals from 41 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas for four days of education, networking and collaboration. Attendees participated in more than 50 educational sessions and saw hands-on demonstrations of ECRS innovations, including CATAPULT Cognition, the CATAPULT Loyalty Suite and AutoScale Max G3.
“We started Ignite to form a community,” said Pete Catoe, founder and CEO of ECRS. “We wanted to bring everybody together to share ideas. People understand the true spirit of what we’re building together, and that’s why it keeps growing.”
Family-owned since 1989, Boone, North Carolina-based ECRS is a retail transactions and artificial intelligence solutions provider. Its CATAPULT POS platform connects retail touchpoints, including point of sale, back office, self-checkout, inventory, loyalty and e-commerce, through a single transactional logic.