2023 Category Captain for OTP/Overall: Swisher

Swisher has achieved Category Captain status at many of the largest convenience store retailers in the country. The company's approach is a balanced portfolio with an intense focus on innovation, analytics, space planning and execution of winning strategies that allow for the continued success of the OTP category. Swisher was a driving force behind OTP growth in 2022.

Its Space Planning team works directly with more than 200 chains nationally, helping with merchandising and making assortment decisions for the nearly 5,500 planograms built by the company's Space Planning department. The team utilizes Blue Yonder's world-class software that integrates multiple data sources, including MSAi, store-level POS and other syndicated directories, to build planograms that represent retailer strategy, current trends and local adult consumer demand. Including this data allows Swisher to analyze the merits of adding, maintaining or removing items from a retailer’s range of products.

After implementation, Swisher works with its partners to gauge the effectiveness of the sets through multiple KPIs, such as distribution gaps, days of supply, category volume and dollar growth. Retailer partners utilizing Swisher's Space Planning services are experiencing higher category growth than those who are not.

2022 ushered in several key initiatives in how Swisher delivers category management to its customers. The supplier has incorporated both a detailed and high-level approach to assist its retailers in analyzing adult consumer preferences and purchase patterns. To support Swisher's corporate growth and innovation initiatives, additional investments have been made in consumer research staffing, tools and services to fund research and testing to deepen consumer understanding and enhance decision making, improve POS communication, guide concept and product development, and optimize marketing programs.