NexChapter
NexChapter partnered with The Insight Shop to mark the debut of NexCX, a suite of customer experience solutions purpose-built for the convenience store industry.
Comprised of two components — Channel Understanding Assessment and Current State Experience Review — NexCX is designed to give c-store operators insight into the desires of consumers in an omnichannel environment.
Through NexCX, brands can potentially gain new visibility into critical areas such as fostering consumer trust, expanding product offerings, optimizing physical store layouts and enhancing digital touchpoints.
Coinciding with the platform launch, the company appointed Mike Templeton as its vice president of digital strategy. Templeton will partner with c-store clients as they seek to transform their businesses to compete in a digital age, as well as leading an industry-wide digital assessment for NexChapter that evaluates c-store retailers' current capabilities and overall digital maturity.
Templeton comes to NexChapter with a 15-year history in the c-store industry, most recently at Casey's General Stores Inc., where he served as head of digital and was responsible for the company's highly digitized order-ahead pizza business, as well as the launch of Casey's Rewards program in 2020. Before Casey's, he led similar initiatives at Kum & Go, developing the company's first mobile app and loyalty program.
Ready Training Online
E-learning solutions provider Ready Training Online (RTO) partnered with UL Solutions to include driver safety training in UL Solution's learning management system, trainingGrid.
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UL Solutions provides safety and security solutions for the automotive and mobility industries. The company's partnership will allow RTO to provide customers with access to dozens of driver safety training modules that cover topics such as:
- Distracted driving;
- Reasonable suspicion for alcohol and substance abuse;
- HAZMAT:
- Driver fatigue;
- Defensive driving; and
- DOT vehicle and roadside inspections.
RTO has produced its own training content for frontline workers since the company was founded in 2005, in addition to developing custom content and videos for customers. Since then, its library has expanded to include hundreds of service-related training topics.
Rich Products Corp.
Rich Products Corp. has begun the second phase of its Brownsville, Texas, manufacturing facility expansion.
National New Markets Fund, an affiliate of Los Angeles-based SDS Capital Group, will invest $17.5 million of its New Markets Tax Credit allocation to support the 150,000-square-foot expansion, which will increase Rich's production capacity for its branded appetizer business. The company received the funds as part of a complex $25.5 million tax credit financing package.
"We've seen a huge influx in customer demand within our growing seafood and appetizer business, so adding capacity is key for continued growth," said Kevin Spratt, president, Rich's U.S./Canada region. "As a proud member of the Brownsville community for over 60 years, we're fully committed to strengthening our local impact with the right combination of associates, products and infrastructure."
The $117 million project, Rich's largest capital campaign to date, consists of two phases. The first phase began in 2023 and included the development of a new frozen warehouse that is expected to open this summer. Phase two, slated to be completed in July 2025, will add capacity for greater production capabilities and storage.
Upon completion, the expansion is expected to create more than 130 full-time jobs, 70% of which are slated to be filled by members of Brownsville's marginalized communities. Rich's also plans to offer workforce training to local residents, including computer literacy courses in partnership with Texas Southmost College.