Building on the success of its Brand Halloween Promotion in 2007, Mars Snackfood U.S. is launching The Halloween Million Dollar Contest next month, a national sweepstakes that will treat one lucky person to a $1 million prize and award 20,000 other prizes as well. Consumers can enter UPC codes from participating products at www.HalloweenMillion.com and [...]
Crain’s Chicago Business reported this week that the headquarters for MillerCoors will be located in either Chicago or Dallas, and not Milwaukee. MillerCoors has been looking for 100,000 to 150,000 square feet of space in Chicago, and could employ as many as 400 people at the home office, according to the business journal. MillerCoors is [...]
Sam’s Club is opening its first Business Center format in Houston later next month, which will offer a greatly expanded selection of products and services to meet the diverse needs of small business owners and others in foodservice, convenience stores, vending, office administration, floral operations, hotel/motel and more. The new locations’ grand opening ceremony is [...]
A study by the Natural Marketing Institute shows retail sales within the U.S. consumer packaged goods’ health and wellness industry hit $102.8 billion in 2007, representing 15% growth since 2006, mediapost.com reported, adding that there doesn’t seem to be any signs of a slowdown in this sector. NMI predicted that double-digit growth of the health [...]
Texas motorists seem to be reining in their driving after months of bucking the national trend, The Houston Chronicle reported. State gasoline tax collections reported in June indicated taxes in Texas fell for two months in a row after a streak of gains earlier this year, even as prices inched toward $4 a gallon, according [...]
A new survey on consumer behaviors and attitudes toward hand washing before eating shows only one in three Americans clean their hands before eating in a restaurant. The figure holds the same for adults and children, whose parents claim they just don’t think about hand hygiene when taking their family to a restaurant. There is [...]
ExxonMobil and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation named Cynthia Reyna, a graduating student of Charles H. Milby High School in Houston, Texas, as the national winner of the 2008 Hispanic Heritage Youth Awards in Engineering and Mathematics, an award sponsored by ExxonMobil. Reyna was honored for her outstanding accomplishments in engineering and mathematics during a ceremony [...]
London-based energy giant BP will be responsible for providing fueling facilities for the vehicles in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, as well as providing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for catering, vehicle-washing facilities and technical support services, including a system for tracking and reporting carbon emissions, the company said. BP said it aims to support [...]
There’s a place at the table in the evolving convenience store industry. By Tonya Brown The issue of diversity and inclusion in corporate America has been a topic of conversation for a long time. First, the issues around the table were about achieving diversity. Then the role of inclusion came to be and the issue [...]
Leaders need to modify their thinking and actions in order to truly unleash the human spirit in their store managers. By Tonya Brown Over the last 11 months, I have seen four District Managers (DM) take reign. Now of course, given that this is the retail industry, it was hardly a surprise. They came and [...]
The business of inclusion is as important as what’s sold on the shelves. Tonya Brown One might think that the convenience store industry is a microcosm of diversity. One would have to admit that the industry, at least from the lower operations level, would fit this mold. After all, the DNA at the lower level [...]
Hackers broke into a network of Citibank ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores and stole customers’ PIN codes, making off with at least $2 million, The Associated Press reported, citing recent court filings. The court documents reveal a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record – the PIN numbers, The Associated Press [...]
Altoona, Penn.-based Sheetz Inc. opened its 350th store this week with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a generous donation to a local park authority to fund maintenance and upkeep on soccer and baseball fields in the community near the new store. The Sheetz c-store in Dillsburg, Penn., brings the company’s presence in that state to 199 [...]
Alon USA Energy Inc. said it completed the acquisition of the Krotz Springs refinery from Valero Energy Corporation, paying out $333 million in cash plus approximately $140 million for working capital, including inventories. “This latest acquisition is another step in our business plan to methodically grow our operations and expand our refining capacity,” said David [...]
Alternative fuel retailers – supercenters, supermarkets, warehouse clubs and the like – are chipping away at the convenience store industry’s gasoline shopper base, a TNS Retail Forward report shows. Results from the most recent TNS Retail Forward ShopperScape survey indicate that a third of shoppers are buying most of their gas at alternative outlets, up [...]