Core-Mark International has selected four start-up or emerging brands to soon become available on store shelves across North America.

The first-ever Core-Mark Curated showcase event — held virtually in August 2020, and featuring participation from eight carefully-selected finalists — yielded these exciting additions to the extensive and fast-growing line of convenience retail products offered by Core-Mark:

• Love Corn: a line of premium snacks made from crunchy corn, sea salt and sunflower oil
• Popsalot: a collection of hand-crafted gourmet popcorns
• OmniBev: the world’s first ready-to-drink authentic Vietnamese Cold Brew Coffee
• Riverside Natural Foods: the creator of healthy snacking products through its MadeGood and Good to Go brands

Three of these new offerings — Love Corn, Popsalot and OmniBev — are available exclusively through the Core-Mark International convenience store distribution network.

“These four innovative, high-quality brands are going to receive meaningful exposure to the convenience channel,” said Chris Murray, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Core-Mark International. “Their selection illustrates the effectiveness of Core-Mark Curated, which we created to uncover and steward the best and brightest new products so that our convenience customers can further improve and differentiate their services to consumers.”

The product lines were selected after presentations to a team of Core-Mark category management and marketing leaders at the Core-Mark Curated showcase event, held virtually from the company’s Westlake, Texas, headquarters in late August. Another Core-Mark Curated virtual trade show will take place in 2021.

Core-Mark Curated — a hybrid of start-up accelerator and incubation programs — is the latest innovation to the company’s acclaimed Retailer Programs and Retailer Solutions, all designed to help make convenience stores more efficient, profitable and a preferred destination for the most discerning consumers. It is a key component of Core-Mark’s Center of Excellence (COE), a state-of-the-art facility enabling convenience retailers to immerse themselves in the retailing experience and drive new ideas, products and solutions to grow their businesses.

Core-Mark is one of the largest marketers of fresh, food and broad-line supply solutions to the convenience retail industry in North America. Founded in 1888, Core-Mark offers a full range of products, marketing programs and technology solutions to approximately 41,000 customer locations in the U.S. and Canada through 32 distribution centers (excluding two distribution facilities the Company operates as a third-party logistics provider). Core-Mark services traditional convenience stores, grocers, drug stores, mass merchants, liquor and specialty stores, and other stores that carry convenience products.