WASHINGTON, DC, 2015-10-13 — /EPR Retail News/ — The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), which works with the private sector and PHA Honorary Chair First Lady Michelle Obama to make healthier choices easier for busy parents and families, today announced that U-Gas, home of GiGi’s Café Express, and Tri Star Services’ Twice Daily, two regional convenience store chains, have signed on to expand healthier options across their stores. The announcement was made at the NACS Show, the convenience store industry’s largest event.
Over the next several years, U-Gas – which has stores in Missouri and Illinois – and Twice Daily convenience stores in Tennessee and Kentucky, are committing to maintain and build upon healthy food choices; continue to make those choices more affordable; and support healthier options through in-store marketing and promotions to meet the needs of the children, families and communities it serves.
“Half of the U.S. population visits a convenience store every single day, and more and more they’re looking for healthier options, which are also more profitable for business,” said PHA CEO Lawrence A. Soler. “As consumer demand continues its shift toward health, U-Gas and Twice Daily are stepping up to ensure their customers have access to those healthier, more affordable options whether they’re grabbing a snack or a meal to go.”
Over the next few years, U-Gas and Twice Daily will work with PHA to expand healthier food offerings, with more fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, healthier packaged foods and healthier made to order or grab & go options. These chains will also focus on in-store promotion of healthier products, as well as other tactics geared toward making the healthy choice the easy choice. Also, in support of PHA’s Drink Up Initiative, both U-Gas and Twice Daily will add the Drink Up logo to all private label water bottles and engage in other marketing activities to encourage more customers to drink water more often.
Nearly 1,000 convenience stores have now committed to PHA to increase access to healthier foods in their stores. Today’s announcement took place at the 2015 NACS Show in Las Vegas. More than 20,000 attendees from 60-plus countries are at the 2015 NACS Show, which features four days of general sessions, more than 60 educational sessions and over 1,100 exhibiting companies in a record-setting 400,000 net-square-foot expo.
“As an industry, we are committed to making a difference in our customers’ lives, and increasingly that involves providing more healthy options in stores. We look forward to continuing to work with PHA and other like-minded groups to celebrate our members’ commitment to the communities that they serve,” said NACS President and CEO Henry O. Armour.
The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation’s youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with – but independent from – First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is led by some of the nation’s most respected health and childhood obesity experts. PHA brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity. Most important, PHA ensures that commitments made are commitments kept by working with unbiased, third parties to monitor and publicly report on the progress our partners are making. For more information about PHA, please visit www.aHealthierAmerica.org and follow PHA on Twitter @PHAnews.
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Founded in 1961 as the National Association of Convenience Stores, NACS (nacsonline.com) is the international association for convenience and fuel retailing. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 152,700 stores across the country, posted $696.1 billion in total sales in 2014, of which $482.6 billion were motor fuels sales. NACS has 2,100 retail and 1,600 supplier member companies, which do business in nearly 50 countries.