Twenty students from Oak Grove Elementary School participated in breaking a World Record during a stacking event at a Kangaroo Express store in Cary, N.C.
The Pantry Inc. partnered with Oak Grove Elementary in Cary, N.C. last month, to help students break a Guinness World Record for the “Most People Sport Stacking at Multiple Locations in One Day.” In all, more than 314,000 sport stackers participated in the Nov. 18 event across the globe.
The Southeastern convenience store chain, with more than 1,642 stores in 11 states, hosted Oak Grove Elementary School’s official World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) Stack Up! event at one of its new Kangaroo Express convenience stores.
In addition to the 20 students from Oak Grove Elementary School, Kangaroo Express brought in Team USA world record holders in sports stacking to teach the students stacking tips—Daniel Hong, age eight from Raleigh, N.C., and Emma and Heath Slabach, ages 10 and 11 respectively from Advance, N.C.
Scott Smith, regional sales director for The Pantry, was on hand at the event where the students had to stack the cups in various pyramid designs, unstack them and restack them in the quickest amount of time. “This is a really exciting time for Kangaroo Express, and this is another example of how we try to engage with the communities that we’re in,” he said.
Employee Participation
Smith, along with other employees, also got in on the stacking competition. “I couldn’t compare to those kids. They were pretty awesome,” he said. “Loud music was playing and they had a competition where they would hop and dance in between stacking, so you really had to be focused to do it well and get it done quickly.”
At the conclusion of the event, Kangaroo Express and Speed Stacks donated the stacking equipment including the timers the kids hit to mark the start and end to their stacking, the mats they stacked the cups on and the cups themselves, which the Team USA sport stackers autographed.
“When they announced over the loudspeaker that they had actually broken the record that day the kids went crazy. It was just a really cool event. I’d love to do it again next year,” Smith said.
Battle for Bean Street
During the stacking event, Kangaroo Express also promoted its new Bean Street Coffee, which the chain began rolling out in June (see page 13). The new coffee will be available at all stores by mid 2012. In addition to improving the taste of the coffee, The Pantry is replacing the glass pot system with new dispensers to preserve the freshness of the coffee, and the serving stations have upgraded cups and lids.
Employees participated in the event using Bean Street Coffee cups that were specially branded with the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke University school logos that were developed especially for the company’s new Battle for Bean Street Promotion, which runs through next March. The three schools are competing to see whose cups sell the best. The winning university will receive a $20,000 donation to its favorite charity from Kanagaroo Express, which also plans to donate $5,000 to the charities of the first and second place schools.
“We’re really trying to engage with the community and let them know about our new Bean Street Coffee,” Smith said.
During the stacking event, the store gave away samples of the new coffee to parents and customers who stumbled upon the event. The new coffee has helped drive business. In the stores in Smith’s area “we have we’re seeing a 40% lift over prior year on units sold on coffee,” he said.
