Developing retail professionals around the world since 1988

The IGA Coca-Cola Institute is a people development organization founded by IGA (Independent Grocers Alliance) with the support of The Coca-Cola Company. For the last 20 years, the Institute has been dedicated to providing learning resources for food retailers worldwide. As an educational organization, it serves more than 6,000 businesses with blended training programs that include 100 industry-specific online courses divided into eight different libraries. The Institute also provides non-IGA retailers and associations with their own branded online corporate universities.

The Institute has one of the world’s largest online food industry course catalogues; in 2011, it had more than 300,000 enrollments and offered learning opportunities in six languages: English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Russian. The Institute has seen an average annual growth of 200% over the last five years.

Our Mission

The IGA Coca-Cola Institute's mission is to increase the people performance and business effectiveness of a worldwide retail community through online learning, classroom training and a resource center. The Institute cultivates not only the improvement of work skills and job performance, but also the personal growth of individuals committed to life-long learning, ethical standards, and full participation in their communities.

What makes the Institute unique?

A large course library that is constantly improving through collaboration with more than 6,000 supermarkets, convenience stores and hypermarkets worldwide.
The best value in the market
Content and learning activities (including audio, video and interactive challenges) developed by food retail people
Testing of job-specific knowledge and skills
Easy-to-track student progress reports and measurable training results
A multi-lingual online training program that is easy to implement, manage and customize

Corporate Universities

The Institute has been developing and managing online corporate universities for retail associations, international retailers like Eurocash—Poland's largest retailer/wholesaler—and retailers like Woods Supermarkets in the United States.

Board of Trustees
Advisory Board


Thomas Haggai Chairman IGA, INC. & IGA Coca-Cola Institute	Paulo Goelzer Ph.D., President and CEO IGA Coca-Cola Institute	Mark Batenic Chairman, President, and CEO IGA USA & IGA GLOBAL	John Collins, CFO, IGA, Inc.

The Advisory Board is comprised of domestic and international retailers (owners, managers and HR professionals) whose function is to:

Serve as a source of information and advice to the Institute’s President
Provide guidance to the IGA Coca-Cola Institute to achieve its mission
Promote inter-company cooperation and collaboration
Reflect the desires and needs of HR/Training professionals of the retail industry
Provide an independent assessment of the IGA Coca-Cola Institute’s direction
Serve as a source of information and advice to the President
Connect local pockets of expertise and isolated professionals


Craig Knies Division Manager Houchens Industries Kentucky	Surani Dias Head of Albert A. Page Institute Cargills Ceylon PLC Sri Lanka	Paulo Goelzer President IGA Coca-Cola Institute Illinois	Doug Haworth Director of Loss Prevention Woods Supermarket Kansas and Missouri


Todd Martin Vice President Martins IGA Plus Illinois	Chairmaine Nickson Training Manager Consolidated Foods Ltd. St. Lucia	Nisha Patel Co-Owner Mt. Plymouth IGA Express Florida	Rick Stewart Co-Owner Susanville IGA California


Deanna Williams Human Resource Manager Kirby Foods, Inc./Jerry's IGA Illinois	Jeff Zollpriester General Manager Quality Foods Stores IGA Wisconsin