Bloomington, Minn.-based Holiday Stationstores operates more than 420 corporate and franchise locations in 12 states, has partnered with Category One (C1), a provider of reverse auction and eRFX services and technology, to utilize Category One’s C1 reverse auction platform to support its cost reduction efforts.

The announcement comes on the heels of a successful pilot period, during which Holiday successfully sourced items ranging from foodservice ingredients and packaging to store supplies. Holiday took advantage of Category One’s supplier database, reverse auction website and category sourcing strategies to achieve double-digit savings on most items.

“The Category One e-sourcing process and technology delivers great results, from suppliers we can trust,” said Martha Glende, merchandising director for Holiday Stationstores. “Category One knows the key suppliers, the current market conditions and how to best describe what we buy. The result was far more competition than we have witnessed in the past and significant savings to the bottom line.”

Mark Shanley, vice president with Category One, said Holiday Stationstores delivers a great experience to the convenience store customer. “It is critical that their suppliers deliver high quality goods and services to protect that image. We are very excited to have helped Holiday identify competitive suppliers with great products,” he said. “Supporting and preparing vendors to bid competitively is what we do best, and the technology delivers market leading pricing.”