Each year, Convenience Store News (CSN) recognizes the best category captains in this retailing sector.

As CSN’s Don Longo reports for its 2016 winners:

“Category captains are in your customers’ brains. These category leaders not only know what consumers want to eat, but they also know the texture, the size, the smell, time of day, tipping-point price, impulse control, and other characteristics that shape shopping behavior.”

“By leveraging the latest technology, winners of the 2016 Convenience Store News Category Captains awards program bring to light many of the industry’s most innovative category management initiatives so that retailers and vendors alike can benefit from new ideas and best practices. These are the experts who deliver on the quickly changing consumer needs and wants, with both low-tech and high-tech solutions to drive business and retain customers.”

For 2016, 10 suppliers and distributors eleven products were chosen as “Category Captains” honorees.

• Alternative Snacks: General Mills Convenience

• Candy: The Hershey Co.

• Foodservice/Hot Beverages: McLane Co. Inc. Foodservice

• Foodservice/Prepared Food: AdvancePierre Foods Inc.

• Foodservice/Cold & Frozen Beverages: The Coca-Cola Co.

• General Merchandise: McLane Co. Inc.

• Other Tobacco Products: Swisher International Inc.

• Packaged Beverages: Dr Pepper Snapple Group

• Packaged Sweet Snacks: McKee Foods Corp.

• Salty Snacks: The Kellogg Co.

• Wine & Liquor: E. & J. Gallo Winery

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