Founders
On July 5, 1970 Peter Damon Schwartz and Milt Sender shook hands on a partnership that produced Daymon Associates, Inc. in New York City, with the goal of maximizing the market potential of Private Brand products, which in 1970, were rarely marketed to attract consumers, suggest quality or differentiate one retailer from another. The company name was a take on Peter’s middle name, and the partnership formed the basis of one of the largest Private Brand companies in the world, which today has offices in over 200 offices in 24 countries around the globe.
Daymon Worldwide’s co-founder, Peter Damon Schwartz, was renowned for wanting to turn each business challenge “on its side” to find new solutions. Peter recognized that there was an opportunity to “professionalize” the Private Brand business; to help the retailer reach its goals and objectives while at the same time fulfilling the needs of the supplier community. The Daymon concept of dedicating a team of people to individual customers in specific markets, and of representing suppliers only to that customer, rather than to the entire market, was designed to create focus, dedication and collaboration between the supplier and the retailer—so that they could work in a common direction to build their own quality brand.
Peter had ideas almost 40 years ago that changed the landscape of the Private Brand business, and arguably led to the changing of the entire domestic landscape of branding strategies in the retail grocery channel. As a family of companies, Daymon Worldwide continues to foster an environment that promotes the same entrepreneurial spirit that Peter lived by, freely encouraging the development of individual ideas that just may change the landscape of today and tomorrow. His powerful legacy guides all of us in business and many of us in life.
In 1994, following a courageous four-year battle with a very rare form of cancer, Peter Schwartz passed away shortly after the partners’ last collective business deal, which secured a new headquarters for Daymon Associates in Stamford, Connecticut—its current location.
Milt Sender was born in 1943, on a dairy farm outside of Erie, Pennsylvania, the only child of German/Jewish holocaust survivors.
In 1965, Milt went to work for Staff Supermarket Associates, then in Great Neck, NY, first as a special assistant to the President, and then as Director of Private Brand Perishables Procurement. Staff was a cooperative of 18 supermarket chains that bought a common Private Brand. These companies included Hannaford, Wegmans, Schnucks, Bruno’s, and companies that now make up parts of larger supermarket organizations such as Stop & Shop and Safeway.
In 1968, Milt joined Kroger Company in Cincinnati, OH as an Administrative Assistant to the Executive Vice President. In that capacity, he worked on one of the first computerized sales forecasting programs utilizing demographic diversity data. Thereafter, Milt was in charge of the development of a plan and its execution to build the first “slow moving common item warehouse” in the U.S. and relieved expansionary pressure from Kroger’s then 24-division warehouses.
On July 5, 1970 Milt joined forces with Peter Schwartz to form Daymon Associates, Inc. in New York City. That partnership has grown into one of the largest Private Brand companies in the world with offices in over 200 locations throughout the U.S., and 24 other countries around the globe.
Today, Milt Sender serves as Chairman of Daymon Worldwide.