Stew Leonard Jr. Wins Previdi Award

Stew Leonard Jr., the president and CEO of Stew Leonard's, won the Cecil J. Previdi Award Friday as Danbury's leading entrepreneur of the year.

Leonard received the award at the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon that features this award plus the mayor's State of the City address every December.

"Stew Leonard's is a true American success story," said Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton. "In Connecticut and New York they employ thousands of people. It is no accident that Danbury has the lowest unemployment rate of any Connecticut City."

Leonard follows a distinguished list of previous award winners, who include Frank Kelly, former CEO of Danbury Health Systems, Anthony M. Rizzo Sr., founder of AM Rizzo Electrical Contractors and the Rizzo Group of Companies, Joe Engelberger, founder of Unimation, Albert Salame, a Danbury property owner and businessman, Paul Scalzo, president of the Scalzo Group, Jerry Leitman, former president of Fuel Cell Energy and Richard Steiner of the Berkshire Corporate Park, among others.

The award is given in memory and honor of Cecil J. Previdi of Danbury, who took a small stationary store and turned it into a nationally recognized printing company using modern management techniques and equipment.

"I'm really honored to get this," Leonard said, and then he thanked his employees in the room, saying, "I have to say thanks to you, because that's who makes it happen."

Leonard thanked the audience for eating 12 million chocolate chip cookies in Danbury since the store opened in 1991.

Leonard said he was asked about business and the economy recently in a television interview, so he and his employees started looking over sales at Thanksgivng, because it is an indicator of how busy Christmas will be.

He said shoppers can choose between buying bulk potatoes and cooking them at home, or they can buy pre-cooked and prepared mashed potatoes. He said if the economy is weak, people buy bulk potatoes, but if the economy is strong, they by the prepared potatoes. He said the prepared potato sales rose 12 percent at Thanksgiving.

"That's a good indicator of the economy," Leonard said. A second indicator, he said, is the cork index. How many bottles of wine worth more than $50 are sold? "That shows people are opening up their wallets a little bit."

The cork index is up 20 percent at Thanksgiving. The turkey index, a third measure, was up 6 percent.

The idea the economy might be improving drew cheers from the audience at the Danbury Plaza Friday.

Ralph McIntosh, former chairman of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce, was chairman of the Previdi award committee this year. He said Stew Leonard's has earned its own accolades, including one of the top places to work for nine years in a row from Fortune Magazine, a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the grocery store with the highest sales per square foot, as the Disneyland of Dairy Stores by the New York Times, and as a fun place to shop.