Retailers weigh in on what stood out to them among the rows of new products in the Cool New Products Preview Room.

At the NACS Show that ran Oct. 7-10 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, attendees had the chance to view the Cool New Products Preview Room and check out what’s new and cool at the expo—all in one place.

The Cool New Products Preview Room featured a record 306 products this year. Retailers received scanners so they could scan the bar code associated with the products they were most interested in, in order to receive more information.  Outside the Cool New Products Preview Room a flat screen monitor posted the top 10 scans for each day.

The Top 10 scans from Tuesday:
f’real foods, f’real foods (Booth 3119)
Nutella & Go and Tic Tac Cinnamon, Ferrero U.S.A. Inc. (Booth 4769)
Safe-T-Fresh Grab and Go Cups, Inline Plastics Corp. (Booth 3162)
TABASCO Chocolate, TOBASCO Chocolate (Booth 6066)
SpellBrite, Optiva (Booth 3918)
MiniSyrup, MiniSyrup (Booth 3219)
Plug & Go, Factory Candy (Booth 6569)
Price Watcher, Watchfire Signs (Booth 3875)
Hot-Can Self-Heating Beverages, Hot-Can Inc. (Booth 6897)
Cold Cow Milk Shake SMOOTHIE, Omni Food Concepts (Booth 1962)

Lea Ragan from Capt’n Joes Convenience Stores in Alaska found Hannah’s picked eggs in her round of the new products room on Wednesday morning. The individually wrapped eggs retail for only 99 cents and were being showcased at the Monogram Food Solutions booth. Ragan noted she was impressed by packaging, the stay fresh aspect and also the quirkiness of the product, which she thought would appeal to her stores’ customer base. Ragan noted as she tours the new products room, she always has to think about which products are available for distribution in Alaska.

Hitting up the new products room first thing Sunday had been Ragan’s original plan, but she said it was difficult to find the room or even someone who knew where it was located. “I wish NACS would push people to come here to the new products room first at the start of the show. At this point I’ve already seen most of these products on the show floor, but it would have saved some leg work to stop in here first,” she said.

Jerry Davidson from Pete’s Corp., which owns and operates 29 convenience stores in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, was impressed by the Cold Cow Milkshake Smoothie concept by Omni Food Concepts. “It’s easy to get and doesn’t cost much to start using the program, compared to other similar programs,” he noted.  He wasn’t alone, as Cold Cow Milkshake Smoothie had made the No. 10 slot on the Top 10 scans list the day before.

Several people touring the room said the Tabasco brand Spicy Chocolate offering especially stood out to them. “I’ve seen the Tabasco chocolate before, and it’s a unique product, there’s nothing like that being offered right now. I think it would be successful in our stores,” a category manager from TravelCenters of America noted.

Apparently, other retailers felt the same way. Tabasco Chocolate was the fourth most scanned new product at the show on Tuesday.

Retailers viewing the products consistently noted that they liked the new products room because it’s a good place to see the new products all in one place, away from the busyness of the show floor.