NORTHRIDGE, CA Pharmavite LLC, the manufacturer and marketer of Nature Made® vitamins, minerals, herbs and other supplements and SOYJOY® nutrition bars, was awarded the 2009 Supermarket News Category Excellence in vitamins and supplements. The prestigious award recognizes Pharmavite for its expertise in working with food retailers to successfully build the vitamin category in the grocery channel.

Pharmavite was praised for providing retailer and consumer education tools as well as advanced category management approaches. The industry also touted Pharmavite’s ability, as the leading vitamin brand, to meet consumers’ needs through innovation and diversification into nutritional snacks.

“Winning the Category Excellence Award is a tremendous honor for Pharmavite and a particular tribute to our category management team, directed by Scott Patricki,” said Skip Aldridge, executive vice president and chief customer officer, Pharmavite. “The award is a testament to our dedication to assisting food retailers in building their presence and better serving the needs of our customers with the highest-quality, most innovative vitamin and supplement offerings.”

The Supermarket News awards honor supermarket industry suppliers who are judged to best serve retailers’ needs. Retailers, industry experts and key associations nominated the candidates, providing Supermarket News with detailed assessments of companies related to a variety of measures. Supermarket News editors evaluated supplier nominations and selected the winners for its second annual Category Excellence Awards issue published this week.

“As a six-time winner of the prestigious Progressive Grocer magazine’s Category Management Award, Pharmavite is truly honored to now also receive top recognition from Supermarket News,” said Aldridge.