7-Eleven Honors Key Suppliers

7-Eleven Inc. announces winners of its 2006 Retailer Initiative Awards, which formally recognize those suppliers that excelled at helping 7-Eleven meet its convenience customers' changing needs through team merchandising, demandchain solutions, cost of goods, category management and contributing to creative advertising and promotional programs. And the winners are:

• UST Inc.
  7-Eleven recognizes UST for its outstanding efforts in customer focus, demand-chain support and cost-of-goods management during 2005. UST is a holding company for its principal subsidiaries, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, makers of Copenhagen and Skoal and International Wine & Spirits Ltd. "UST has had a positive impact on our organization with a collaborative approach to merchandising their high-quality products and maximizing in-store promotions to provide superior value to customers," says 7-Eleven President and CEO Joe DePinto.
   
• BakeFresh Company LLC
  7-Eleven honors BakeFresh, the producer of fresh bakery items, as a team-merchandising leader for 7-Eleven operations in the Chesapeake and New England regions. The supplier established production efficiency and execution, and quality assurance standards that serve as best practices for other 7-Eleven bakery partners. Also, the company created additional training tools for its manufacturing locations focused on improving product quality, freshness and sales.