KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Pumpkin spice has infiltrated a range of edibles, from beer and candy to coffee and cookies, and Hostess Brands LLC is introducing to its product lineup Pumpkin Spice CupCakes—cream cheese-frosted pumpkin spice cake with creamy filling and fall foliage sprinkles.

In addition, cinnamon-glazed Pumpkin Spice and Maple Glazed Donettes are also now available at stores nationwide, rounding out the company’s range of seasonal items this fall.

“As consumer tastes evolve and different occasions call for different flavors, we look to provide more innovative and unexpected items to satisfy those cravings,” said Ellen Copaken, vice president of marketing at Hostess Brands. “These latest indulgences in popular flavors are premium, seasonal alternatives to our existing snack cakes that have proven to be timeless classics.”

Consumers can expect additional seasonal items from Hostess to hit stores in time for the holidays, the company said.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Hostess owns the Twinkies, CupCakes, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, Zingers, Suzy Q’s, Sno Balls, Donettes, Fruit Pie and other snack-cake brands.

CALGARY, Alberta — Category Management Knowledge Group (CMKG) and b2b Solutions LLC are introducing an On-Line Category Management Training Program specifically developed for convenience-store and small-store retailers. The training will help retailers move to a more strategic, fact-based approach in their business, the companies said.

“Teaming up with b2b Solutions to provide online and custom training solutions to the convenience-store industry is an exciting development for our company,” said Sue Nicholls, president of CMKG.

The addition of this partnership reflects the desire of both companies to collaborate on a shared vision of building capability and capacity in organizations to meet the needs of the changing c-store industry and its shoppers.

“We saw a perfect fit for both organizations in our like-minded approaches and visions to build the skills of c-store/small-store owners around the world in order to help them compete with the increasingly competitive marketplace through a more strategic approach to their business,” said Steve Montgomery, b2b Solutions president.

“Our focus is on real-world, actionable learning, not just theory. The foundations of category management-certified training, coupled with a strong knowledge and understanding of c-stores and how they work has led to an incredible and unique learning program that will benefit c-store owners around the world,” he said.

As part of the CMKG b2b Solutions partnership launch, the companies will host a free webinar titled “Category Management in Your C-Store / Small-Store Overview” on Oct. 8 and Nov. 19, 2015.

Founded in 2002, Calgary, Alberta-based CMKG is a category management training company that is offers blended learning solutions, including online, case studies, webinars and live training. CMKG serves more than 100 clients and was the first company to have its training certified by the Category Management Association. It also has run live training sessions at Convenience University (sponsored by CSP) for the past two years.

Founded in 1994, Lake Forest, Ill.-based b2b Solutions is a consultancy that specializes in working with retailers and suppliers in the convenience-store industry. It supports its retailer clients with backgrounds in business strategy and planning, retail fuel, marketing and merchandising, foodservice, store operations and information systems. Industry suppliers use b2b Solutions for industry education, research and market-penetration strategies.

WAUSAU, Wis. — Riiser Energy and the R-Store convenience stores are celebrating their 70th anniversary with a week-long celebration that will begin on Sept. 20, 2015. R-Store locations will offer in-store sales, R-Store app specials and a Green Bay ticket giveaway

Arthur Riiser started the company in 1945. Arthur’s son, Tom, bought the company in 1960.

“Over the 40 years I owned Riiser, we expanded the convenience stores by 10 locations. We had a strong focus on growth and expansion, which laid the groundwork for the company’s success that followed,” said Tom Riiser.

In 1999, Jim Kemerling and Dick Dudley purchased Riiser Energy.

The company now owns 26 R-Store convenience stores, three truckstops and a fleet of delivery trucks, and it employs nearly 350 associates. 

“This company was built on the promise to provide the ultimate buying experience to our customers by providing quality products and services,” said president and CEO Jim Kemerling.

He attributes Riiser’s success to the company’s loyal customers and dedicated associates.

“We have succeeded in our first 70 years, and intend to succeed in our next 70 years,” Kemerling said.

Riiser Energy is based in Wausau, Wis.

WAUSAU, Wis. — Riiser Energy and the R-Store convenience stores are celebrating their 70th anniversary with a week-long celebration that will begin on Sept. 20, 2015. R-Store locations will offer in-store sales, R-Store app specials and a Green Bay ticket giveaway

Arthur Riiser started the company in 1945. Arthur’s son, Tom, bought the company in 1960.

“Over the 40 years I owned Riiser, we expanded the convenience stores by 10 locations. We had a strong focus on growth and expansion, which laid the groundwork for the company’s success that followed,” said Tom Riiser.

In 1999, Jim Kemerling and Dick Dudley purchased Riiser Energy.

The company now owns 26 R-Store convenience stores, three truckstops and a fleet of delivery trucks, and it employs nearly 350 associates. 

“This company was built on the promise to provide the ultimate buying experience to our customers by providing quality products and services,” said president and CEO Jim Kemerling.

He attributes Riiser’s success to the company’s loyal customers and dedicated associates.

“We have succeeded in our first 70 years, and intend to succeed in our next 70 years,” Kemerling said.

Riiser Energy is based in Wausau, Wis.

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. — The Outlook Leadership conference—presented by CSP magazine—is recognizing three companies for extraordinary leadership in the convenience-store and retail petroleum industry. These inspiring companies are Cumberland Farms, NOCO and QuikTrip.

Previously named the Environmental Stewardship Awards, the 2015 Catalyst Awards acknowledge leaders who facilitate a positive entrepreneurial spirit. The awards will be presented during the Outlook Leadership conference, held November 14-16 at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Representing their companies to accept the awards are:

• Gwen Forman, senior vice president of marketing at Cumberland Farms, Framingham, Mass.
• Michael F. Newman, executive vice president, NOCO, Tonawanda, N.Y.
• Troy Devos, director of real estate, QuikTrip, Tulsa, Okla.

Attendees of this session will have an exclusive opportunity to learn about the leadership these companies have demonstrated and the steps each took to get to their goals. The Catalyst Awards presentation will occur during the morning General Session on Sunday, November 15, sponsored by GreenPrint LLC.

“We are thrilled to recognize true leaders who pioneer and promote technological, emotional and physical betterment,” said Myra Kressner, senior vice president and general manager of Winsight Events. “We are in a sea of catalytic leaders fostering change to systems and processes they can improve, and Outlook Leadership embraces and engages with this catalyst environment. Highlighting these outstanding companies is just one of countless ways Outlook Leadership helps propel attendees and their businesses to new heights.”

About the 2015 Honorees:

Cumberland Farms

In a contrarian move, New England’s largest convenience-store chain saw Obamacare not as a great evil but as an opportunity to truly become an employer of choice. While many retailers looked to cut workers’ hours, Cumberland Farms did just the opposite—to pursue a 100% full-time roster of employees in which every single employee receives health care. The move has greatly enhanced the pool of job candidates, reduced turnover and raised the overall morale at this family-run chain.

NOCO

When NOCO began designing its newest convenience store, the company embraced sustainability. The leadership on environmental design not only creates a better customer experience, but also values the role c-stores have in marrying what’s right for business with what’s right for planet Earth.

QuikTrip

Demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., just over one year ago destroyed many businesses downtown, including a QuikTrip convenience store. Instead of simply rebuilding, the company donated the site to the Urban League to help Ferguson residents get the necessary training for jobs. QuikTrip also provided support to all employees from that store and promised them all employment within the company—it’s doing the right thing.

Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based Winsight LLC (formerly CSP Business Media) is a market-dominant, business-to-business media and information company specializing in the convenience-store retailing, restaurant and noncommercial foodservice industries.

Winsight Media has an extensive media portfolio of leading publications, including CSP, Restaurant Business, FoodService Director and Convenience Store Products, a suite of digital products including websites, e-newsletters (including CSP Daily News and Restaurant Business Daily) and webinars, as well as video products, mobile and tablet apps, custom marketing solutions and the convenience-store retailer intelligence tool, CSPedia.

The Winsight Events group produces six exclusive, large-scale executive-level conferences—Restaurant Leadership Conference, FARE Conference, Outlook Leadership, Convenience Retailing University, FSTEC and MenuDirections—in addition to more than 12 major EduNetworking conferences and advisory meetings.

Winsight recently acquired Technomic Inc., the leading provider of primary and secondary market information and advisory services to the food industry.

DALLAS — 7-Eleven convenience stores are starting the fall season with a weeklong Share a Slurpee drink promotion.

The Buy One-Get One Free deal runs every day from September 14 through September 20. Customers who buy any size or flavor Slurpee drink can receive a second Slurpee drink free. The free Slurpee can be the same size as the one purchased, or smaller.

During the Share a Slurpee promotion, both the purchased and free Slurpee drinks count toward the 7Rewards “Buy Six, Get the Seventh Free” drink offer available on the 7-Eleven smartphone app.

To participate in the 7Rewards program, customers must use 7-Eleven’s mobile app, available in the iTunes App Store or Google Play, and register as a member. The member’s unique, scannable barcode and digital punch card are located on the app’s home screen for easier use.

“Slurpee is a fun frozen treat, like a party in a cup,” said Laura Gordon, vice president of marketing and brand innovation. “Lots of our customers bring family and friends with them when they stop by a 7-Eleven store for a Slurpee drink. This offer is not only a great value but also provides a week of opportunities to make new friends with a shared Slurpee. Some might even want to ‘slurp it forward’ and brighten someone else’s day with a free Slurpee.”

Meanwhile, 7-Eleven Canada is bringing back Slurpee Name Your Price Day for the second year, September 16.

The retailer is giving Canadian customers the power to pay what they want for a large Slurpee–100% of the proceeds will go to Food Banks Canada, supporting local food banks in 7-Eleven communities. Last year, the convenience-store chain’s customers raised more than $120,000 (Canadian; $90,511 U.S.), the equivalent of providing Canadians in need with over 360,000 meals.

7-Eleven and Food Banks Canada are challenging Slurpee fans to beat last year’s total. Customers can pay 50 cents, $2, $50 or whatever they want to for the frozen beverage

“We see time and time again how important cause-related initiatives are to our customers,” said Raj Kapoor, vice president and general manager of 7-Eleven Canada, Vancouver, B.C. “We want to thank our Slurpee fans for being so generous last year and now challenge them to raise even more funds this year and have an even greater impact on those in need across the country.”

Dallas-based 7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses nearly 10,500 7-Eleven convenience stores in North America. Globally, there are more than 56,600 7-Eleven c-stores in 16 countries.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The path to purchase has never been clearer.

For the past six years, VideoMining Corp., State College, Pa., has harnessed heat-mapping technology to track convenience-store customers’ shopping behavior in its annual C-Store Shopper Insights (CSI) program. For the 2014 program, eight retail chains had one or more stores outfitted with ceiling-mounted cameras to follow their customers’ journey through the aisles. They included Circle K, Thorntons, BP America’s ampm, Holiday Stationstores, Maverik, RaceTrac, Giant Eagle’s GetGo and Cumberland Farms.

The retailers also shared point-of-sale (POS) data with VideoMining, which, with the help of proprietary software, correlated the store traffic with purchase behavior. Exit interviews with customers provided additional insight.

Click here for an exclusive look at the data results.

The heat maps provide an especially compelling demonstration of how much layout, merchandising and signage influence the path of customers through the store, as well as whether they make a purchase and how much they spend. With this knowledge, a retailer can tweak its approach said Gwen Forman, senior vice president of marketing at Cumberland Farms convenience stores, Framingham, Mass. One of its sites showed that customers were not venturing as deep into the store as they could.

“We need to look into why that might be,” said Forman. “Are there things we can do to make the backend of the store more exciting for customers? Our stores have a foodservice and non-foodservice side, and foodservice seems to get more traffic. We are challenging ourselves to make it more enticing on the other side.”

Through heat mapping in the VideoMining study, Maverik Inc. learned that customers were going to either one side of the store or the other, said Maria Correa, customer research analyst at the 260-convenience-store chain. “One of the main things we have accomplished was to have a better store [layout] for our customers, in a way that they can go through whole store and not be divided by one side or the other. We also have more meaningful promotions—we actually have less promotions—and have a cleaner store now that we know it’s not necessary to have a lot of promotions and POP in the store to call customers’ attention.”

Following are three common store layouts heat-mapped by VideoMining in its 2014 study, and how they influenced their shopper-to-buyer conversion and basket size.

Click here for more from the research.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Building on its foundational enterprise software, PDI officials announced pivotal changes in its upcoming Enterprise 8 release at its 2015 users’ conference, with continued migration to web-browser configuration, greater data-transfer standardization and increased mobile and handheld flexibility.

About 400 attendees in the opening general session on Sunday listened to PDI executives and product managers detail upgrades in application features and outline fundamental changes to its platform, reflecting what many referred to as an evolution towards more web-based and mobile technology.

Taking the stage at the general session, Justin Baxley, product manager for Temple, Texas-based PDI, compared the current flowchart of PDI’s data process to a “subway map” and how the new process will allow store-level handheld devices to wirelessly upload data directly to host computers in real time.

Though many of the educational classes at the meeting–running from September 13 to September 16 in Fort Worth, Texas–varied from broad strokes to the highly technical, officials spoke about the new version of PDI’s enterprise product being poised to address a number of evolutionary issues:

• Real-time inventory. With handheld devices moving from “batch” processing to real time, retailers would see numerous benefits in item movement, but would also have to consider a number of processes and software upgrades to reap the benefits of greater inventory visibility.
• Improved standardized communication. At its core, the new version moves away from proprietary Microsoft language and protocols to standards more in line with web-based and mobile technologies, repositioning the new platform for innovation in those areas.
• Mobile. The changes open up greater uses for tablets, phones and handheld devices in store operations.
• Market-basket analytics and vendor data transfer. The new version also incorporates a market-basket component, which will better facilitate the use of store-level data to develop reports and transmit data to meet emerging vendor requirements.
• Better forecasting and control. The new options allow for more accurate forecasting and reordering, with controls offered at any level of the operation to avoid out-of-stocks during seasonal or event-driving rushes and overstock on normalized sales periods.

Other opening session presentations covered improvements in wholesale fuel operations, the preparation necessary to upgrade to the new enterprise version and continued development in PDI’s labor-scheduling solution, introduced last year.

PDI officials also noted the company’s recent investor buyout to claim independence from its former owners, wholesale distribution giant McLane, also based in Temple, Texas.  Many officials indicated the potential for the newly independent company to grow in any number of ways—upstream, downstream or cross-channel—via organic growth or acquisition.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Debra A. Crew will become president and chief operating officer of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The move is among several executive changes that Reynolds American Inc. has announced at both RAI and R.J. Reynolds, its largest subsidiary. All of the changes will be effective Oct. 1, 2015.

Crew, currently president and chief commercial officer of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, will assume management responsibility for the company’s manufacturing operations and research and development functions, in addition to her ongoing responsibility for the consumer and trade marketing functions.

Nancy H. Hawley, currently senior vice president of operations at R.J. Reynolds, will be promoted to executive vice president of operations for the company.

Daniel J. Herko, currently senior vice president of research and development for R.J. Reynolds, will be promoted to executive vice president of research and development for the company. Herko will also become an executive vice president of RAI Services Co. and will be responsible for managing regulatory oversight for RAI’s subsidiaries.

When Crew assumes her new responsibilities, Jeffery S. Gentry, currently R.J. Reynolds’ executive vice president of operations and chief scientific officer, will move to a project role overseeing the ongoing integration of Lorillard operations into subsidiaries of RAI. Gentry plans to retire sometime in the first half of 2016.

Thomas R. Adams, who served as RAI’s executive vice president and chief financial officer from 2008 to March 2015, and has been overseeing the integration of Lorillard operations, now plans to retire on October 1 when Gentry assumes responsibility for overseeing the integration.

“Reynolds American places great importance on its talent-development and succession-planning processes,” said Susan M. Cameron, RAI’s president and CEO. “As a result, we have a talented pool of top-notch executives ready to move into key leadership roles for our companies. Strong people and strong brands are the keys to success in consumer packaged-goods businesses, and Reynolds American and its subsidiaries are fortunate to have both.”

Reynolds American Inc. is the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. Inc.; American Snuff Co. LLC; Niconovum USA Inc.; Niconovum AB; and R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco’s brands include Newport, Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes; American Snuff’s brands include Grizzly and Kodiak smokeless tobacco products; Santa Fe Natural Tobacco manufactures and markets Natural American Spirit 100% additive-free natural tobacco products, including styles made with organic tobacco; Niconovum USA and Niconovum AB market nicotine replacement therapy products in the United States and Sweden, respectively, under the Zonnic brand name; and R.J. Reynolds Vapor manufactures and markets Vuse electronic cigarettes.

CAMARILLO, Calif. — During the past three weeks, the U.S. average regular-grade gasoline price at the pump dropped 26.54 cents per gallon to $2.4419. Over 13 weeks, it has receded a whopping 42.43 cents per gallon, and it stands at a $1.0212 discount to its year-ago point, according to the most recent Lundberg Survey of approximately 2,500 U.S. gas stations.

This time it was not crude oil prices that brought the cut. In fact, both main light crude index prices strengthened some during the period. It was the downstream sector, both refiners and retailers, slashing their own gasoline margins for sake of chasing motorist purchases.

Both refiner and retailer margins on gasoline have been enjoying a heyday, and even after these cuts, margins are still impressive.

Consumers are in a heyday of their own, demanding far more gasoline than last year, thanks in large part to lower prices.

Gasoline supply is more than enough to accommodate demand. Although the capacity use rate dropped due to some refiners initiating winter maintenance projects, stocks grew some.

The U.S. gasoline market is hot and competitors are busy maximizing opportunities for sales gains.

Correction of supply tightness during hobbling of some plants has been dramatic in the Midwest and West. For example, Indianapolis pump prices crashed nearly 73 cents per gallon during three weeks to just $2.13 and the Chicago average plummeted nearly 62 cents to just over $2.85 as the return of BP’s Whiting refinery brought huge supply relief to the region. The Los Angeles average dropped nearly 36 cents over three weeks to just under $3.31, with San Diego’s falling nearly as much, mostly because higher California prices have been beckoning supply from outside after several months of shortage.

Absent a sudden and large jump in oil prices, retail gasoline prices may well drop another dime or more near term. Margins on average are still healthy enough to withstand some shrinkage, and this week brings some cost relief to refiners as much of the country is allowed to down shift vapor pressure for winter grade gasoline. Higher vapor pressure caps are also positive for gasoline output.

Retail gasoline margin on regular is just over 30 cents per gallon, and year to date it is more than 18 cents, beating its calendar 2014 average by a nose. Year to date, the regular grade pump price is a wide 80 cents per gallon under that of calendar year 2014.

Camarillo, Calif.-based Lundberg Survey Inc. is an independent market research company specializing in the U.S. petroleum marketing and related industries.

Click here for previous Lundberg Survey reports in CSP Daily News.