<p>Insight and NACS are delighted to announce the judges for the prestigious 2012 International Convenience Retailer of the Year Award, sponsored by Imperial Tobacco for the fourth year running.
Two new judges are joining our panel. Frank Gleeson, retail director at Topaz, the Award winner in 2011; and Jeff Rogut, executive director at the Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS), join an established panel with expertise in worldwide convenience and forecourt markets.


Jeff Rogut: Australian convenience expert joins the 2012 panel

In alphabetical order the 2012 panel is:

-Joe Bona, president, retail division, CBX
-Frank Gleeson, retail director, Topaz
-Ramon Kuijpers, international key accounts manager, Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH, an Imperial Tobacco Group company
-Don Longo, editor-in-chief, Convenience Store News & Single Store Owner
-Dan Munford, managing director, Insight Research
-Stephanie Rice, founder of Rice Retail Marketing
-Jeff Rogut, executive director at the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores
-Fiona Briggs, editor, Global Convenience Store Focus and Erin Pressley, editor NACS Magazine, will co-chair the judging panel.

The 2012 International Convenience Retailer of the Year Award was launched in December 2011 and is now inviting entries from leading convenience and forecourt retailers around the world.

Retailers are required to submit documentation based on a number of key criteria and supply photographic and/or video evidence (for further information visit please visit: Entry Form

In the first stage of the judging process, the judges will review the entries to produce a shortlist of retailers. The shortlist will be featured on Global Convenience Store Focus and readers will be invited to vote for their favourite format online.

Our expert panel will also be judging the new award category in 2012, focused on product availability.

Imperial Tobacco is also sponsoring this new award, which will look to benchmark and highlight global best practices in the development of better resource, behaviours and processes in the last five yards of convenience retail. Both retailers and suppliers will be able to enter case studies for this award, and the winner will be decided by the judging panel, rather than an internet vote.

Announcing the judging panel, Insight managing director, Dan Munford, said: “We are delighted to have established such an experienced and international panel of convenience expertise. We are delighted to welcome on board Frank Gleeson from Topaz, the winner of the 2011 Award; and Jeff Rogut from the AACS.

“Our judges have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the convenience sector and they represent some of the leading global convenience store markets. Their input will help to ensure the shortlisted entries in the 2012 International Convenience Retailer of the Year Award and new Product Availability Initiative will be truly world class.”

Previous winners of international convenience awards, sponsored by Insight and NACS, have included Tesco Express Environment Store and Spar Ireland’s Eurospar format.

In 2009 readers of Global Convenience Store Focus voted Spar China as their winner of the award. The Spar Hongtu store in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, is independently owned by the Hu Family.

In 2010, Applegreen, Ireland’s leading independent forecourt retailer, won the readers’ vote from an impressive shortlist; while rival forecourt Topaz scooped the crown in 2011 for its state-of-the-art forecourt opened in partnership with McDonald’s. Morrisons’ new convenience format, M-local, was highly commended.

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