The 2011 National Association of Convenience Store (NACS) Show, held Oct. 1-4 at McCormick Place in Chicago, targets convenience store owners, with displays from confectionery, tobacco and beverage companies, among others. Here, Candy Industry offers a look at the show, by the numbers.*

More than 22,300
Number of attendees at this year’s NACS show

1.5%
Increase over last year’s attendance of 22,312.

58
Number of countries the attendees came from.

387,000 sq. ft.
Size of the exposition floor.

1,333
Number of companies that exhibited on that floor.

324
Number of new companies at this year’s show.

6,750
Number of people who attended one of the educational workshops.

72 tons
Amount of leftover product product from exhibitors that was donated to two charitable organizations: the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a local food bank, and Operation Interdependence, which provides goods to the military troops and their families.

146,341
Number of convenience stores in the United States. That works out to one for every 2,100 people.

160 million
Number of customers the U.S. convenience store industry serves daily.

$575 billion
Amount of sales those convenience stores see annually — similar to competing channels often thought of to be much greater, including restaurants ($583 billion), supermarkets ($563 billion) and drug stores ($222 billion, not including prescriptions).

Oct. 7-10
Dates for the 2012 NACS Show, which is slated to be held in Las Vegas.

*All data provided by NACS