Four-Star Restaurants Aren't the Only Ones With Gourmet Chefs: Team of

DALLAS, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- When culinary circles speak of "chefs," a handful of nationally known names immediately come to mind. And when speaking of "7-Eleven" and "chefs," what comes to mind? What most customers might not know is that 7-Eleven, Inc. has a corporate chef - actually, a team of chefs - in the kitchen, part of a fresh food product development team determined to make consumers believers in the quality, flavor and value of the expanded line-up of 7-Eleven fresh food items.

To expand its menu of high-quality and gourmet-style fresh foods with new flavors and ingredients exclusive to 7-Eleven, the fresh food development team follows dining and food trends in restaurants closely. Playing a key role in developing new flavors are Executive Chef Phil Butler, Product Development Chef Randal Shircel, Bakery Chef Jeff Schultz and Sous Chef Britain Smyth, all full-time employees who are part of the 7-Eleven fresh food research and development team headed by Kulsoom Klavon, Director Product Development

The three chefs are part of a multifaceted food development group with food preparation, merchandising, operations and packaging expertise. The 7- Eleven team follows food trends in restaurants, not just fast-food, but also sit-down casual, to develop new sandwich flavors and ingredients exclusive to 7-Eleven. According to Butler, bold is beautiful in flavor combinations today, and they've developed their recipes accordingly. Among the sandwich spreads the team has developed exclusively for 7-Eleven include tomato basil, roasted pepper, tomato feta, olive pesto, Southwest mayonnaise and jalapeno hollandaise.

"Our emphasis has been on creating foods with bold flavors and unusual recipes," Butler said. "If we have a sandwich with fire-roasted chili peppers, you can taste the peppers' distinctive flavor. If we have a sandwich with grilled chicken, you can taste that the chicken has been grilled."

In addition to traditional sliced bread sandwiches, 7-Eleven has ventured into wraps. The first three varieties of Big Eats(TM) Wraps -- Chicken with Soy Ginger spread, Turkey and Cappicola Club and Chicken Breast with Southwestern Mustard -- have received very positive reviews in Austin tests and is rolling out to participating 7-Eleven stores nationally in March, 2005. Even the packaging is unique. Portability for on-the-go consumers was another consideration when developing the Big Eats Wrap. Not only did it need to be easy to eat, the wrap also had to travel well. That meant that the packaging needed to be developed concurrently with the product by the product development team. The result was a container, exclusive to 7-Eleven, in which the wraps stand upright, and will fit in a car's cup-holder.

"Wraps came about because we were looking at foods with portability specifically in mind," Butler said. "Besides making a great-tasting product, we had to make sure the ingredients and sauces didn't spill and the tortilla wrap held together, while others worked to create a container especially for this item."

While it might be a relatively easy task to prepare an individual item in a controlled environment like a restaurant, it's quite another to develop a recipe that can be replicated millions of times in local kitchens across the country. After all, 7-Eleven sells 32 million sandwiches each year. Last year, the food team developed 350 different fresh food items - sandwiches, salads, breakfast items and baked goods.

Before any fresh food item is introduced nationally, it is tested for a few weeks in a limited number of 7-Eleven stores. New products must be received favorably by consumer taste test panels, conducted by professional screeners in stores. In blind taste tests conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, consumers were "shocked" by the high quality of the fresh-made sandwiches. The company is communicating that "not what you expected" concept in television and radio commercials. Likewise, at a recent food expo featuring nationally known chefs from top restaurants, Phil Butler and his team sampled their creations. Attending tasters expressed pleasant surprise after tasting the Big Eats Wraps at the 7-Eleven sampling display. "Sampling is great for us," Butler said. "It provides an opportunity to show off what we can do, and for consumers to taste for themselves that 7-Eleven and fresh food can be used in a sentence together/are not an oxymoron."

About 7-Eleven, Inc.

7-Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience retailing industry. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, 7-Eleven, Inc. operates or franchises approximately 5,800 7-Eleven(R) stores in the United States and Canada and licenses approximately 22,000 7-Eleven stores in 17 other countries and U.S. territories throughout the world. During 2004, 7-Eleven stores worldwide generated total sales of more than $41 billion. Find out more online at http://www.7-eleven.com/.