Tropical Foods Honored for Diversity at Sodexo's Annual Partnership Meeting

Charlotte-headquartered Tropical Foods – snack food manufacturer and distributor– was honored by Sodexo North America as their 2016 Strategic Diverse Supplier Partner of the Year. Sodexo is a major supporter of minority and diversity owned companies including women-owned businesses. Tropical Foods has been a certified WBENC business since 2002 when sisters Angela Bauer and Carolyn Bennett became majority owners.

“We are incredibly honored to receive this award from Sodexo and be recognized as an important women-owned vendor,” said Angela Bauer, owner of Tropical Foods. “We are proud to have a partnership with a company that is also committed to diversity development.”

Honored at the awards presentation, Tropical Foods won for demonstrating a strategic and collaborative approach when working with Sodexo by providing innovative ideas to increase product utilization and developing differentiated products that address trends and consumer preferences in our marketplace. Tropical has exceled in the area of customer service and continuously demonstrated their extensive product knowledge and best-in-class deployment processes which has resulted in a 45% program increase.

Sodexo shares a vision of a workplace rooted in diversity and actively seeks to bring diverse businesses into their network of suppliers, including minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, disabled-owned or LGBT-owned companies. They currently partner with almost 1,674 diverse suppliers.

About Tropical Foods
Tropical Foods specializes in premium snack mixes, freshly roasted nuts and seeds, dried fruit, and hundreds of bulk and packaged candies, spices, grains and specialty foods. Tropical Foods has an extensive line of retail branded products, including Grabeez®, Buffalo Nuts® and Dip & Devour. The company was founded in 1977 with an original product line of 100 items which has grown to include more than 3,000 today. Second generation, women-owned, Tropical is headquartered in Charlotte, NC, with additional operating centers in Orlando, Atlanta, Memphis, Washington DC, and Dallas.

Contact:

Chad Hartman

Director of Marketing, Tropical Foods

chartman@tropicalfoods.com

704-602-0631