Black Buffalo has revealed its H1 2025 Herd Preferred Award recipients, including several convenience stores.
Recognized for outstanding performance across key metrics during the first half of 2025, the Chicago-based smokeless tobacco company said the award celebrates retail partners who achieved top performance across these categories:
- Top convenience and tobacco store chains by Black Buffalo cans per week (CPW).
- Top convenience and tobacco store chains by overall Black Buffalo volume.
The first-half 2025 Herd Preferred Award winners are:
- Wawa, Wawa, Pennsylvania
- QuikTrip, Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Pilot Co., Knoxville, Tennessee
- RaceTrac, Atlanta
- Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores, Oklahoma City
- Smoker Friendly, Boulder, Colorado
- Sheetz, Altoona, Pennsylvania
- Town Pump, Butte, Montana
- Weigel’s, Powell, Tennessee
- Newcomb Oil (FiveStar), Bardstown, Kentucky
- GetGo Café + Market, Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania
- Rutter’s, York, Pennsylvania
- Smokin' Joe’s, Davenport, Iowa
- Jackson BevCo, Boise, Idaho
- Puff Discount. Mill Hall, Pennsylvania
- Discount Tobacco, Springfield, Illinois
- Discount Tobacco Outlet, Manchester, Tennessee
- Wild Bill's, Troy Michigan
“Our first-half 2025 Herd Preferred Award winners are rightly counted among the best-in-class retailers in the tobacco and nicotine categories,” said Matthew Hanson, chief growth officer at Black Buffalo, “Black Buffalo is proud to recognize each Herd Preferred Award winner for their excellence and impact across the category, and we remain deeply committed to supporting and growing our retail partnerships across the country.”
Performance was evaluated using shipment data provided by Pittsburgh-based Management Science Associates, Inc. (MSAi) from January through June, and includes only those chains that carried Black Buffalo products for the entirety of the period, the company said.
Black Buffalo said that while the H1 2025 Herd Preferred Award is grounded in objective performance using total can volume and CPW, each of these chains has also shown remarkable commitment to growing the category and serving adult nicotine consumers responsibly.
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