BP ampm Vet Jim Hatchel Joins Eby-Brown

NAPERVILLE, Ill. - Eby-Brown Co. LLC named former BP/ampm Senior Category Manager Jim Hachtel as its new vice president of strategic insights. In this role, Hachtel will focus on Eby-Brown's SmartProcess program, which helps the company's retailer customers own their market by identifying what items they should carry in their stores.

Hachtel has 32 years of convenience retailing experience and held multiple roles at BP/ampm, including merchandising manager, operations manager, training and development manager, and project manager. As senior category manager, he was responsible for the center-of-store categories at more than 1,200 ampm locations and managed more than 3,500 products.

"I've always been passionate about the convenience channel of trade, and helping our great retailers grow their business," Hachtel said. "There are many challenges that convenience operators face every day, and I'm looking forward to working with our customers to help provide solutions to some of those challenges through the Eby-Brown SmartProcess. I'm excited to join the Eby team and look forward to using my energy, enthusiasm and experience to help Eby-Brown further cement its position as an industry leader in providing category management-driven solutions."

SmartProcess uses a fact-based methodology to compare actual sales to c-store syndicated data. The resulting analysis provides additional volume projections by category, based on changes in the SKU mix to maximize category sales, according to the wholesaler.

Eby-Brown is a privately held convenience store distributor in the United States, servicing retail accounts throughout the Midwest and Southeast.