Love’s Bryen Bloomfield named Center Store Category Manager of the Year

Image by W. Scott Mitchell

Bryen Bloomfield, center store category manager for Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores in Oklahoma City, appreciates the category’s diversity, solid relationships with an eclectic cast of supply partners and a restarted product innovation pipeline that delivers “something new and different every week,” he says.

Bloomfield (pictured above with Abbey Lewis, Vice President of Content Strategy at CSPs, and Krister Hampton, Senior Manager of Industry Engagement at Altria) was one of the CSP seven winners of the “Category Manager of the Year” award.

During the pandemic, this sales channel has largely dried up – and with it the tempting advertising campaigns in stores that drive the offer.

The good news: Both are back in full force. Bloomfield, whose chain operates 644 stores in 42 states, wants to use the opportunity to help sales of candy and snacks regain the value they rightfully deserve. Inflationary pressure was the last brake that turned this development on its head.

• Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores ranks 16th in CSP’s Top 202 rankings of U.S. convenience store chains by number of stores in 2024.

“New product development was on hold during the pandemic, but in 2024 the company really wants to capitalize on that – we’ll take a close look at it and see the value,” says Bloomfield, who started as an intern at Love’s before moving into alcoholic beverage oversight and then to the central store.

These questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

What are some of your big goals for this year?

A smaller but growing segment that needs to be better promoted is “healthy/energetic” snacks. If you attend industry trade shows, you’ll see that this niche segment is ubiquitous. Our chain was way behind, so we reached out to our supply partners and came up with a plan. This year, customers will see special “healthy/energetic” merchandising (hotspots) at Love’s travel centers. We’re moving in that direction.

As you keep both the local and professional driver clientele in mind, what subtle merchandising tweaks are you considering to best serve both?

It was interesting that during COVID-19, Love’s relied too heavily on larger pack sizes and moved away from smaller ones. Professional drivers pay more (per occasion) and these pack sizes fit their purchasing habits. We looked ourselves in the mirror to see what we could do better. We started with a plan to implement more competitive pricing and promotions to better serve the local “occasional” customer.

What new products have impressed you recently?

Reese’s Caramel Big Cup (1.4 oz.) and Nerds Gummy Clusters (sweet and gummy, tart and crunchy) boosted our candy departments – outperforming some of the core products. Our team saw the potential of clusters early on. These new additions came at just the right time, as candy baskets had been declining due to price increase notifications. This forced us to get more creative to generate excitement for promotions and encourage basket filling.

What is the biggest challenge in this category that you want to overcome?

Inflation – I’m sick of hearing and saying it. We’ve endured so many announcements of cost increases and frankly we’ve become numb. The question in the context of the current economic and inflationary environment is… how do we deal with it?

The meat snacks/jerky category has had a rough year in terms of sales and volume. Any ideas why?

The inherent value of the segment was lost to consumers. The trend in meat snacks was interesting and linked to inflation. Consumers first moved from large bags to medium packs, then moved to individual sticks before leaving the category altogether. We want to prevent this exit.

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