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It’s a surprising correlation, and an important anecdote on the power of open-air coolers. It’s about yogurt.
Never a robust category for the convenience-store industry, yogurt sales have surged upward over the past year. One distributor, Core-Mark, reports 20% growth, and one retailer, Plaid Pantries, has watched yogurt sales quadruple. Why the bump? “That is caused entirely by moving it out of the cold-vault door and into an open-air cooler,” says Butch Fulton, merchandising manager for the Beaverton, Ore.-based chain.
