Partnership for a Healthier America and NACS Announce New Commitments in Healthier Convenience Retailing

Harbor Wholesale Foods and Kwik Trip join more than 225 PHA partners to transform the marketplace and provide more choice to more customers

LAS VEGAS October 9, 2018 – Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), a nonprofit that helps leverage the power of corporate America to improve the food supply, and the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), which represents the nation’s 154,000-plus convenience stores, today announced that two NACS members have signed new commitments with PHA: Harbor Wholesale Foods and Kwik Trip, Inc.

Harbor Wholesale Foods (HWF) is a family-owned distributor serving more than 2,700 convenience stores and other retailers in the Pacific Northwest. HWF has made a three-year commitment to offer more nutritious food and beverage options and support demand for those healthier options by providing retail customers with in-store marketing materials. HWF will also enhance its existing internal wellness programs to promote healthy eating and physical activity among its employees.

“Collaborating with our retail partners to ensure they have the right product mix and merchandising to be successful with today’s on the go consumer —that’s what we do every day,” said Harbor Wholesale Foods Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Ryan Peters. “By joining the PHA family and its mission to build a healthier future for the next generation, we’re offering a fresh perspective on what defines success and providing our retail partners with the solutions and support to achieve it.”

Kwik Trip is a Wisconsin-based convenience store chain with more than 600 retail locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. Kwik Trip has made a third, three-year commitment and will activate PHA’s fruit and vegetables initiative (“FNV”) in all Wisconsin Kwik Trip stores to promote the consumption of fresh, frozen, canned and dried FNVs. The company will also update its customer loyalty program to promote healthier food options and continue to host an annual donation campaign to support PHA. This is the third commitment that Kwik Trip has signed with PHA; Kwik Trip was the first convenience retailer to sign a commitment with PHA in 2014.

“Our partnership with PHA has proved fruitful for many years,” said Steve Loehr, Kwik Trip’s Vice President of Operations Support. “Through our PHA commitments, we greatly expanded our fruit, vegetable, and other better-for-you food offerings. While our sales of healthier foods have increased, we’ve also received positive feedback from our guests. It’s a win-win, and we’re proud to take this next step in the journey toward a healthier future.”

“One of every two Americans visits a convenience store every day,” said PHA President & CEO Nancy E. Roman. “Through our partnership with the convenience store industry, we are able to reach more families, everywhere in the country. We’re proud to count Harbor Wholesale Foods, Kwik Trip and NACS among our allies in creating a healthier future for all American families.”

“We are proud to welcome these new commitments to existing PHA commitments by nine retailer companies and five other distributor companies. Collectively, these commitments alone affect 80,000 convenience stores across the country and help make the healthy choice the easy choice for millions of Americans every day,” said NACS President and CEO Henry Armour.

The commitments were announced at the NACS Show, the convenience and fuel retailing’s premier industry event, that attracts more than 24,000 industry stakeholders from around the world.

In addition to encouraging member engagement, NACS is an official partner of PHA’s Drink Up campaign, which encourages Americans to drink more water, more often and disseminates a web-based nutrition resource, the Healthier Product Calculator, to assist member companies in identifying healthier product options.

To learn more about the Healthier Product Calculator, Drink Up and convenience store and distributor commitments visit [www.ahealthieramerica.org](www.ahealthieramerica.org).

About Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) PHA’s mission is to leverage the power of the private sector to bring lasting systemic changes that improve the food supply, increase healthy choices, increase physical activity and contribute to a culture of health. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with—but independent from—Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! effort. PHA identifies, accelerates and celebrates voluntary business practices that improve or increase choice or lead to new norms and behavior around food and physical activity. For more information about PHA, please visit [www.aHealthierAmerica.org](www.aHealthierAmerica.org) and follow PHA on Twitter [@PHAnews](www.twitter.com/phanews).

NACS advances the role of convenience stores as positive economic, social and philanthropic contributors to the communities they serve. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 154,000 stores nationwide selling fuel, food and merchandise, serves 165 million customers daily—half of the U.S. population—and has sales that are 10.8% of total U.S. retail and foodservice sales. NACS has 2,100 retailers and 1,750 supplier members from more than 50 countries. Learn more at convenience.org and join us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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CONTACT Toni Carey, Partnership for a Healthier America Office: 202-864-6057 tcarey@ahealthieramerica.org

Jeff Lenard, National Association of Convenience Stores Office: 703-518-4272 jlenard@convenience.org