The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), the American Beverage Association (ABA) and two of the nation’s major health organizations have joined forces to help people reduce the amount of sugar and calories they consumer through beverages.
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation and the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) are facilitating the collaboration between ABA and NACS to support their commitments to help Americans in their efforts to reduce their sugar intake by providing more beverage choices.
The combined mission of the groups is to reduce sugar and calories consumed from beverages purchased at convenience stores. The new agreement was announced at PHA’s 2018 Innovating a Healthier Future Summit in Washington, D.C.
ABA and NACS had previously announced separate commitments to help achieve similar goals. In 2015, ABA announced a Balance Calories Initiative, developed with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation that focuses on reducing beverage calories consumed per person nationally by 20 percent by 2025.
At PHA’s 2017 Summit, NACS, the association representing the nation’s 154,000-plus convenience stores, announced an associationwide commitment with PHA, becoming PHA’s first retail-association partner.
“Convenience stores serve 165 million Americans every day, whether for quick snacks and meals or a variety of beverages. This new agreement will help extend the work we already do with groups like PHA to help make healthy options a convenient choice, whether you’re driving around town or on a summer road trip,” said Hank Armour, NACS president and CEO.
Through 2019, ABA and NACS will support their member companies in raising awareness of and driving consumer interest in more zero- and reduced-sugar beverage choices. These efforts will be supported in various ways, including through sharing of point-of-sale resources as well as in-store engagement with convenience store consumers.
“These two industries have seized an opportunity to align and increase availability and awareness of healthier beverage options in convenience stores, which will ultimately provide more choices for consumers on the go,” said Nancy E. Roman, president and CEO of the Partnership for a Healthier America.
Convenience stores are a leading destination for beverages and have a 42.8 percent market share of all non-alcoholic packaged beverage sales when examining convenience stores, food stores, drug stores and mass merchandise stores (excluding Walmart), according to Nielsen data.
NACS provided some statistics about beverage sales at convenience stores:
- Low-calorie options are growing in sales in convenience stores. Packaged beverage sales at convenience stores grew 2.3 percent in 2017, led by the growth of enhanced water (up 9.1 percent) and ready-to-drink iced teas (up 3.5 percent). Bottled water sales increased 0.6 percent.
- Beverages drive convenience store sales. Nearly half of all convenience store customers (49 percent ) say that their primary reason to go into the convenience store was to purchase a beverage (35 percent went to purchase food and 17 percent went inside for another item or service), according to a NACS national consumer survey.
- Convenience stores are beverage destinations. The 154,948 U.S. convenience stores have a 42.8 percent market share of all packaged beverage sales among food stores, drug stores and mass merchandise stores (excluding Walmart), according to Nielsen data for 2017.
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