TruckStops® Routing System: the Natural Choice for Blooming Prairie Warehouse

ARLINGTON, VA - October 15, 2001 - Blooming Prairie selected TruckStops Routing and Scheduling System to help restructure their static routes and with daily routing updates, according to a recent announcement from MicroAnalytics, Inc. Blooming Prairie has warehouses in Iowa City, IA and Minneapolis, MN.

Blooming Prairie is a wholesale cooperative distributor of natural and organic foods and products serving customers throughout 13 states in the Midwest since 1974. Blooming Prairie serves retail natural food stores, traditional grocery stores, buying clubs and buying services. Other accounts include restaurants, food service kitchens and bakeries. Some of their customers include Whole Foods, HyVee, Twin Cities Natural Food Coops and Cashwise/Coburns.

"We looked at other routing systems, but the other systems could not necessarily handle the idiosyncrasies of our diverse customer base," said Nick Knuth, Director of Transportation for Blooming Prairie. "TruckStops allows us the flexibility that is important for our routing needs."

Blooming Prairie plans on using TruckStops in several facets of their organization. Initially the organic food supplier will use TruckStops as a tool to assist in reconstructing their regional routes and then globally routing their entire customer base. "Once done, we will use TruckStops on a daily basis to determine the most efficient ways of integrating new customers into our routes. We also plan on using TruckStops for analytical purposes, and we are very excited to get things started," Knuth said.

MicroAnalytics (www.bestroutes.com) has produced logistics software since 1984. The company helped pioneer the development of PC-based routing systems and is recognized as the leading software provider with over 2,400 systems distributed worldwide. In addition to the TruckStops® system, MicroAnalytics publishes and markets the OptiSite® Distribution Planning Model, GeoNet™ Location Databases and the BUSTOPS® Student Transportation Management System. The company operates offices in Arlington, Virginia; Toronto, Ontario; and London, England. Agents in Europe, South America, South Africa, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore represent MicroAnalytics. The Arlington, Virginia office may be reached at 703-841-0414 or via e-mail at info@bestroutes.com.