ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Supermarket chain Coborn’s Inc. has chosen Kalibrate Pricing Cloud to centralize pricing decisions for its 35 fuel and convenience-store locations. Coborn’s selected Kalibrate Survey to enable store managers in the field to easily record competitor fuel prices using a smartphone.

Coborn’s two gas-station and convenience-store brands include Holiday and Little Duke’s in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

“Kalibrate helps us operate and perform in a way that aligns with two of our corporate values: executional excellence and innovation,” said Dave Meyer, vice president of operations at Coborn’s Inc. “We take risks, make advances and learn from the outcomes. That’s the continuous learning mindset we see in Kalibrate, too.”

“Coborn’s is a progressive retailer always striving for improvement,” said Bob Stein, president and CEO of Kalibrate. “Our centralized pricing strategy and solution will ensure their operation achieves executional excellence and improved performance.”

Kalibrate Pricing’s analytics enable the Coborn’s pricing team to optimize results defined by corporate strategy, while also accounting for local market conditions and site-specific characteristics. Station managers are connected to the process through Kalibrate Survey, ensuring that headquarters and forecourt are always aligned.

Kalibrate Pricing solutions are available securely in the office or in the field. Cloud-based access enables streamlined simulation sharing and customizable workspaces. Access to the most current market data ensures that models and results reflect the complexities, dynamics and realities of the fuel retail environment.

Kalibrate advises fuel and convenience-store retailers worldwide on how to be best-in-class operators in the fast-changing marketplace. Kalibrate’s global footprint and local presence are the result of a merger between two market leaders: KSS Fuels, the forerunner in fuel pricing automation, and MPSI, a leader of retail location intelligence. It is based in Manchester, U.K., and Florham Park, N.J.

St. Cloud, Minn.-based Coborn’s is a diversified, employee-owned enterprise operating 54 grocery stores in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin under the Coborn’s, Cash Wise Foods and Save-A-Lot banners. It also operates 19 Little Dukes and 15 Holiday convenience stores, along with video stores, liquor stores and pharmacies. Coborn’s also owns and operates a central bakery, central dry cleaning facility, grocery warehouse and distribution center and online grocery delivery service.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has filed a motion for contempt against Walgreens, after a new Attorney General’s Office investigation found stores are routinely deceiving customers with expired tags displayed in stores.

According to Koster, his office visited 50 Walgreens drug stores across the state July 26 through September 1 and found more than 1,300 expired sales tags in 49 of the stores, despite a court order in which Walgreens promised to remove tags within 12 hours of their expiration. Hundreds of these tags were weeks past their expiration date, with two that had expired in 2013.

The court order was entered following an agreement between Walgreens and the AG’s office to resolve Koster’s August 2013 lawsuit for expired and incorrect tags.

“My office’s 2013 investigation showed a relationship between expired tags and consumers being overcharged at the register,” Koster said. “Consumers should not have to dig through outdated and incorrect information to find out the true price of any item.”

The contempt motion filed this week in Jackson County Circuit Court asks the court to find that Walgreens has violated the court’s order and fine the company up to $5,000 for every expired tag that was discovered by investigators during the recent inspections, plus an additional penalty for every day that an expired tag is found to be hanging in a store in the future.

Koster said Walgreens has already paid the state of Missouri $136,500 for pricing violations found in regularly scheduled independent audits that are also required by the court’s order. Thirty Walgreens stores have failed these audits and several failed more than once, with one store failing six times in a row. In all, Walgreens stores have failed 53 audits in the last year.

“I promised Missouri consumers that we were going to stay on Walgreens’ back until it corrected its deceptive ways,” Koster said. “It is the stores’ responsibility to ensure fair and accurate pricing. We are not going to quit until Walgreens gets it right.”

As part of the 2014 agreed to order, consumers are also entitled to Consumer Vigilance Awards from Walgreens when they are overcharged at the register because there is an incorrect or expired tag which shows the wrong price. Under that program, a consumer who is overcharged for an item that costs $5 or less will receive the item for free, and a consumer who is overcharged for an item that costs more than $5 will receive a Walgreens gift card worth $10, plus receive the item at the lowest advertised price.

Click here to view related documents.

WASHINGTON —While local and state tobacco-related legislative issues are reported on routinely throughout the year, bills pending in Congress that would tax or regulate cigarettes, other tobacco products and electronic cigarettes are also numerous, but generally do not receive the same level of media attention.

The tobacco-related bills summarized below are pending in either the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives and have been referred to congressional committees for future committee hearings and actions:

• Senate Bills 430 and 2047 and House Bills 478 and 4325 would regulate the marketing of e-cigarettes.
• Senate Bill 142 and House Bills 1375 and 3242 would require child safety packaging for liquid nicotine containers to be established by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• The President’s proposed federal budget includes a 94-cents-per-pack increase in the federal cigarette tax and proportionate tax increases for all other tobacco products.
• House Bill 1578 would temporarily increase the federal tax on tobacco products to fund the enrollment of individuals under the pre-existing condition insurance program under the Affordable Health Care law.
• Senate Bills 39, 194, and 826 would enact tobacco tax parity so that tobacco products are taxed at essentially the same rate as the federal cigarette tax rate.
• House Bill 3042 would amend the Jenkins Act to prevent the interstate sale and delivery of e-cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco to minors.
• House Bill 662 would amend the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to exempt traditional large and premium cigars from regulation by the Food and Drug Administration and from user fees assessed on tobacco products by the FDA.

ATLANTA — Children’s-beverages maker Good2grow has hired a new vice president of sales to lead its convenience-channel division.

Effective Sept. 1, Dustin Snyder will oversee all sales-related functions, including the management of the good2grow convenience-channel team. Snyder will report directly to company president Gunner Olson.

“I am really excited about the solutions good2grow provides our channel,” Snyder said. “Our all-natural drinks bring more moms into stores providing a healthy alternative that kids love, while increasing profits for our retail partners.”

Snyder comes to good2grow from c-store industry distributor Eby-Brown, where he has worked since 2010. Most recently as a senior vice president of sales, Snyder was responsible for all new business development, including a 19-person team that averaged $200 million per year in new sales, contract extensions for 80 of the companies’ largest customers, all chain and independent sales and merchandising for four distribution centers. He also managed industry relations and trade shows.

Snyder is currently a board member of the National Association of Convenience Stores Supplier Board. Prior to his time at Eby-Brown, Snyder held various management and vice president positions within the convenience-store industry.

Good2grow is a family-owned company that manufactures and markets an innovative line of better-for-you children’s beverages featuring popular character tops that make good nutrition fun for kids.

LAVAL, Quebec — A proposal to extend the dual-class structure of Alimentation Couche-Tard‘s founding directors was pulled from Tuesday’s agenda of the convenience-store company’s shareholders meeting, noting legal delays.

In July, the company, which announced this week intentions to expand and refresh its Circle K c-store brand, asked its shareholders to approve amendments that would maintain its dual-class structure longer, so that its four founders can remain involved in guiding the chain for years to come, as previously reported in CSP Daily News.

Together, co-founders and directors of the board Alain Bouchard (executive chairman of the board), Jacques D’Amours (former vice president of administration), Richard Fortin (former CFO) and Réal Plourde (former COO) currently own about 22.7% of the issued and outstanding shares of Couche-Tard, according to the SEC documents. Most of these shares are multiple-voting shares with 10 votes each, but they are subject to a sunset provision that would remove their superior voting status.

The proposed extension required two-thirds support from ordinary shareholders to pass. However, the board of directors removed the request from the meeting agenda “considering that the necessary votes were not obtained within the legal delays.”

The board added that, if deemed appropriate, the subject could be addressed at a subsequent meeting.

During the meeting, all the candidates proposed as directors of the company were elected by a majority of the votes cast by the shareholders present or represented by proxy at the meeting, including the four founders.

Couche-Tard is the leader in the Canadian convenience-store industry. In the United States, it is the largest independent convenience-store operator in terms of number of company-operated stores. In Europe, Couche-Tard is a leader in convenience store and road transportation fuel retail in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries with a significant presence in Poland.

As of July 19, 2015, Couche-Tard’s network comprised 7,987 convenience stores throughout North America, including 6,556 stores offering road transportation fuel.

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — Earlier this year, Tokyo-based Japan Tobacco Inc. (JT) shook up the electronic cigarette industry by officially acquiring the No. 3 e-cig player in the United States, Logic Technology Development LLC.  In an exclusive interview, company president Miguel Martin laid out how this move better sets Logic up to succeed in 2016 and beyond.

Q: What benefits are there to a partnership between an independent vape company and major tobacco manufacturers?

A: “Clearly in the adult nicotine space, there are advantages to partnerships, whether that’s Reynolds and Lorillard, Altria and Green Smoke or whatever. It’s the same potential regulatory environment, same sales and marketing position, and most importantly, the same consumer: adult smokers.”

Q: Why merge with an international player like JT?

A: “Companies that work outside of the United States have to have drastically different marketing plans, regulatory plans, pricing plans than what is a pretty homogenous approach in the U.S. With electronic cigarettes, you constantly have to come out with new products, constantly be really reactive to all these different factors. International companies, by necessity, have to run that way.”

“A company like JT has demonstrated the flexibility to take big brands and customize them to unique markets and different consumer bases. That flexibility and agility is particularly applicable to electronic cigarettes because the consumer is moving so quickly.”

Q: How does this set Logic up to compete against Big Tobacco?

A: “Our primary competition is Reynolds, Altria and now Imperial … companies that view electronic cigarettes as a compliment or alternative to their mainline businesses. It’s our only business, so we will be uniquely focused on electronic cigarettes.”

Q: How onerous is the potential cost of regulatory compliance once the deeming regs are finalized?

A: “There’s no question that the regulatory cost is going to be expensive. There are the apparent costs: manufacturing compliance, what it takes to get through the substantial equivalence process as well as any local costs. While expensive societal alignment and regulatory compliance are foundational principles for Logic.”

Q: What should retailers know about this deal?

A: “It’s great to have the partnership and I look forward to working with JT. The Logic people aren’t changing and most importantly the trade-centric approach isn’t changing. What retailers should know is that this partnership will allow us to expand quicker, develop new products faster, have more people assisting them and allowing Logic as a whole to maximize its potential.”

Q: What insights do you have on the future of the e-vapor industry?

A: “Similar to energy drinks, we believe the best way to win is to sell products aligned with the needs of the adult consumer and in a manner that creates mutual profits for your trade partners. The best regulatory-forward product—whether it comes from a small company or a big company—is going to define the winner.”

Brought to you by GasBuddy.

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Research firm eMarketer projects mobile advertising will account for 51% of the total digital ad market worldwide by 2016. With 2015 quickly coming to a close, you need to hop on the mobile train and look at the power of beacon technology. With Q4 in sight, the timing could not be more perfect.

Whether you’re a small or large convenience-store retailer, beacon technology will make an impactful presence on your mobile-marketing strategy. Below are the top 5 revenue-producing tactics that use this type of technology.

1. Get shoppers in your door.

Have a special in-store coupon available? With a Bluetooth beacon by your door, you can send a targeted message to shoppers. When they walk by your doors, they’ll see your message and coupon on their smart phone.

Don’t have a coupon? Instead, send a message stating what products you carry, and be sure to mention specific name brands along with any ongoing or upcoming sales. Are you a larger store? Use beacons to emphasize a particular category by sending a specific promotional offer to try a new product or promote a brand on sale.

2. Provide information.

Beacons can do more than push advertising promotions; in fact, they don’t even have to be promotions at all. Sending value-added content on a customer’s path to purchase can be just as effective, if not more so. For example, place a beacon near a new product.  When customers stand next to it, push a product demo to help them make the right decision on which product to buy. Using the technology to help your customers will gain their trust, respect and loyalty, thus gaining more of their business in the future.

3. Cross-sell.

Provided you have an established loyalty program, you can easily integrate beacons as part of your mobile-marketing strategy. This will further increase engagement and continued growth for your one-to-one customer relationships. Promote products that have higher bonus points or provide promotions that are exclusive to your loyalty club members.

4. Upsell.

Continuing with an existing loyalty program, use the customer’s previous purchase history to send targeted offers, content, promotions and more. As an example, you can guide them around your store with ads for recommended products and where to find them, add a special bonus-points offering for customers who purchase the item(s) today.

5. Go the extra mile.

It goes without saying: The more of a personalized touch you can give your customers, the more they will come back for repeated business. Increase your mobile-marketing strategy a bit further by integrating features your customers will find useful. By incorporating a shopping list feature within your app, you have the ability to guide customers around your store, to the correct aisle and shelf where the product is located. Once at the location, send an available coupon or promotional offer for a particular brand.

Don’t have an app? Do not let this limit your mobile-marketing abilities. Partner with app companies that already have your target audience engaged. For more information about beacons, or to begin an advertising partnership with GasBuddy’s 50 million users, please contact us at advertising.gasbuddy.com.

LAVAL, Quebec – Beginning now with 12 convenience stores from a new acquisition in Indiana and moving in 2016 to the 1,550 c-stores acquired from The Pantry in the U.S. Southeast, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. is consolidating its Circle K, Statoil, Mac’s and Kangaroo Express retail brands under one refreshed global banner, creating a new, global convenience brand, Circle K.

“We operate in over 15,000 locations, in over 20 countries globally,” president and CEO Brian Hannasch said during a media call to offer details on the initiative. “We have over 100,000 employees and associates serving our customers each and every day. We serve over six million customers each and every day. Today, we have revenue exceeding $35 billion in U.S. dollars. … Our story is one of both organic growth and also growing by acquisition. We’re not outperforming the market by a little, we’re outperforming the market by a lot. We’ve had a good run, but … where do we go from here?”

He added, “As we’ve continued to grow, we’ve been faced with a significant question. Do we continue the recipe which we’ve had, which is a company of companies, or do we join together to become one company, one business?”

The answer: The existing Circle K is already Couche-Tard’s largest and most international brand. As reported in a 21st Century Smoke/CSP Daily News Flash, the new Circle K brand will replace Couche-Tard’s existing Circle K, Statoil, Mac’s and Kangaroo Express branding on its convenience stores and gas stations across Canada, the United States, Scandinavia and Central and Eastern Europe. The new Circle K brand will also appear on licensed stores across Asia.

(One exception: “The owl stays,” said Hannasch. Laval, Québec-based Couche-Tard has chosen to retain the company’s founding Couche-Tard retail brand in Québec due to the history and specifics of that market. And he said emphatically that the company will “remain Couche-Tard” and not change its corporate name to Circle K.)

“This is not about simply combining two brands in the Southeast and rebranding Kangaroo Express to Circle K,” he said. “It is about creating a new, global brand together. Adopting a single global brand will make us stronger, reinforce our culture and help us focus on [customer service]. … It’s about taking a little bit from each of the brands that we have, that we use around the world today, and making it a part of what we think is a refreshed, new and improved and more timeless Circle K logo.”

The company will begin rolling out the new Circle K brand officially to convenience stores in the United States in January 2016. Customers will see it on gas stations in Europe starting in May 2016, while Canadian customers outside Québec will see the new Circle K brand starting in May or June 2017.

Taking the lead for the Kangaroo Express transformation is Darrell Davis, senior vice president of operations for Couche-Tard.

“This is an exciting time for Kangaroo Express locations and communities, as they are amongst the first in the world to adopt the new Circle K brand,” he said. “This is much more than a signage exercise. With this global transition we are strengthening our identity and the experience we will offer to all of our guests.”

The brand consolidation will lead to best-practice sharing, the company said, and it will enhance benchmarking across international boundaries; the business will have opportunities to benefit further from economies of scale and a simplified brand portfolio. It will “make the synergies come to the market even more quickly than they have in the past,” Hannasch said. “A core part of our DNA is to share best practices globally.”

The company will complete the Kangaroo Express rebranding, as well as that of the traditional Circle K stores in that same region, to the new Circle K brand within six to nine months.

As of July 19, 2015, Couche-Tard’s network comprised 7,987 convenience stores throughout North America, including 6,556 stores offering road transportation fuel. Its North American network consists of 15 business units, including 11 in the United States covering 41 States and four in Canada covering all 10 provinces.

In Europe, Couche-Tard operates a retail network across Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Poland, the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Russia. As at July 19, 2015, it comprised 2,229 stores, the majority of which offer road transportation fuel and convenience-store products while the others are unmanned automated gas stations that offer road transportation fuel only. The corporation also offers other products, including stationary energy, marine fuel, lubricants and chemicals. Couche-Tard operates key fuel terminals and fuel depots in six countries.

In addition, about 4,700 stores are operated by independent operators under the Circle K banner in 12 other countries or regions worldwide (China, Guam, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam), which brings to more than 14,900 the number of sites in Couche-Tard’s network.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — This summer, snack cake maker Hostess Brands LLC began selling white and wheat bread under the Hostess name, as well as buns for hamburgers and hot dogs to convenience stores, drug stores and dollar stores.

Under private-equity firms Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management LLC, which in 2013 bought the snack-cake brands out of liquidation, the company has streamlined production by paring the number of bakeries and upgrading them with larger ovens and robots that pack Twinkies into boxes.

Initially, bread did not interest Metropoulos and Apollo. In the liquidation, Flowers Foods Inc. and other buyers purchased the Hostess breads, which included Wonder Bread and Nature’s Pride.

But Hostess CEO Bill Toler said convenience-store and drug-store customers expressed an interest in having a single brand representing both bread and other baked goods because they were not getting reliable bread deliveries through the bread makers’ direct-store distribution systems, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Toler said Kansas City, Mo.-based Hostess surveys showed that consumers thought Hostess bread already existed even though there never was a Hostess-branded bread.

The fresh bread business is dominated by companies such as Flowers Foods and Grupo Bimbo SAB, which use route drivers who both deliver the bread directly to stores and place it on shelves. Because convenience stores and drugstores do not sell a lot of bread, it’s hard for drivers to justify making frequent trips to every outlet to swap fresh loaves for stale ones.

Hostess, under its new owners, dropped the direct-store delivery model. It now ships products from its three bakeries in Indianapolis; Columbus, Ga.; and Emporia, Kansas, to a central warehouse in Chicago where they are bundled with each customer’s full order of Hostess products and sent to the retailer’s distribution center. At the retailer’s distribution center, Hostess products are loaded onto trucks with other items for delivery to individual stores, where store employees place them on shelves.

As efficient as that is, there are risks.

“In the warehouse model of distribution, the manufacturer’s responsibility stops once the retailer takes control of the product,” and store employees have to make sure they aren’t stocking stale bread, Jim Hertel, managing partner at retail consulting firm Willard Bishop, told the newspaper.

Toler said that for many stores, the Hostess bread is replacing frozen bread that store employees had to thaw. “Our solution is actually easier for the stores,” he said.

Toler, who became Hostess CEO in May 2014, is a food-industry veteran who was CEO of food-service supplier AdvancePierre Foods Inc. and, before that, president of Pinnacle Foods Group Inc. when C. Dean Metropoulos owned it and was CEO.

Hostess is also eyeing other new segments, such as brownies, “a $400 million category that you would think Hostess would be in,” Mr. Toler said. “There are things we can keep doing with this business. There also are questions around cookies, but we don’t want to go too far afield.”

Click here to view the full Journal report.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — G&M Oil Co. Inc. recently chose Gilbarco Veeder-Root as its partner for an extensive Europay MasterCard and Visa (EMV)-certified technology upgrade at 120 locations across Southern California.

G&M is seeking to further enhance this performance with Gilbarco’s integrated Passport point-of-sale (POS) and media-at-the-pump solution, Applause TV with VNET.

G&M Oil leadership had been searching for a turnkey in-store and forecourt marketing solution that would support evolving credit networks, dynamic media and remote management. They also wanted to provide a technology foundation for pending changes due to the EMV liability shift.

“With EMV deadlines coming up fast, it’s important to be proactive about the new requirements so that we control upgrade schedules and reap the benefit ahead of competition,” said Julie Jackson, senior vice president and general manager for G&M Oil. “This turnkey solution, including Passport’s ease of use and reliability, will help our operations tremendously.”

The rollout is part of G&M’s broader strategy to standardize all POS and dispensers with Gilbarco technology. Gilbarco president Steve Moule said that G&M Oil is one of a growing number of large retailers who are adopting Gilbarco’s technology to realize a return on the upgrade investment required to meet EMV requirements.

“In order to meet the tight deadlines established by the card brands, retailers will need to advance their EMV plans in 2015,” Moule said. “G&M will be pleased with the efficiencies they gain by standardizing on Passport, as well as the additional revenue generated by marketing with Applause TV.”

Gilbarco Veeder-Root, Greensboro, N.C., is a technology leader for retail and commercial fueling operations. It offers integrated solutions from the forecourt to the convenience store and head office.

Founded in 1969, G&M Oil operates more than 140 G&M, Chevron and Extra Mile branded convenience stores and gas stations throughout Southern California.