Cumberland Farms Selects UNICCO To Keep Them Going With Route Maintenance At Over 500 Stores.

Business Editors

NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 18, 2002

UNICCO(R) Service Company, one of North America's largest integrated facilities services outsourcing companies, has been selected by Cumberland Farms to provide a broad range of mobile maintenance and facilities services to over 500 convenience stores and properties in the Northeast and Florida. UNICCO will be providing the services at Cumberland Farms' owned and operated stores, owned and leased stores, and other retail properties the company owns.

The transition from Cumberland Farms to UNICCO maintenance was completed September 30. The outsourcing company is providing mechanical systems, HVAC/R, plumbing, electrical, parking lot, roof, fence, etc. maintenance, as well as lighting services for all properties. Inside the stores, UNICCO will also maintain coffee service, icemakers, soda dispensers and related equipment, and provide remodeling and light construction services on a bid basis. UNICCO is establishing formal preventive and predictive maintenance programs plus ongoing training classes for all employees.

UNICCO will be utilizing Corrigo's mobile service management solution and wireless technology to send work orders from their Call Center's computerized maintenance management system directly to technicians' cell phones. When the work is done, the store manager can sign off on the job completion over the same phone. UNICCO also integrated their call center with Cumberland Farms' system to provide a guaranteed emergency response window and allow the customer to monitor the status of all work online in real time.

"UNICCO is dedicated to facilities services, so they can bring higher productivity levels and better cost effectiveness than even a large retailer like us," noted Scott Ameraullt, Cumberland Farms' manager of maintenance services. "Our technicians were spending about half their time driving so they weren't able to allocate enough time on preventive maintenance. That creates more emergency calls and higher costs. We're looking forward to an improved preventive maintenance program, which among other things, will reduce maintenance costs, energy consumption and equipment downtime."

"We are extremely pleased to add a respected retailer like Cumberland Farms to our mobile route maintenance program," said John Rogers, business development director for UNICCO's Retail Group. "Our customer density gives us the ability to drive down transaction costs. UNICCO's business model is to increase technician wrench time to 80 percent and minimize the windshield, logistics and administrative time to just 20 percent. It's something we can do with our geographical overlay of convenience store, restaurant, bank and other customers. Our trucks can visit each customer facility every other week for a half-day. The real key is creating the preventive maintenance time. Reducing emergency repairs is a lot less expensive for our customers, and a lot less inconvenient for their customers."

Cumberland Farms and UNICCO also worked closely to be able to offer all of the retailer's affected employees comparable jobs with UNICCO. "Almost all of them accepted," said Rogers. "So, that made the outsourcing decision a lot easier for our customer and seamless for store managers."

About Cumberland Farms

Cumberland Farms, one of the nation's largest and most successful convenience store, retail and wholesale petroleum marketers, owns and operates almost 1,000 outlets throughout New England, the mid-Atlantic states and Florida.

Founded in 1938 by Vasilios and Aphrodite Haseotes in Cumberland, Rhode Island, the business is headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts and is still family owned. Ms. Lily Haseotes Bentas is the company's president and chief executive officer.

Cumberland Farms also conducts bakery, beverage, ice cream, grocery warehousing and distribution, and petroleum distribution operations, primarily to support its convenience stores. In addition, Cumberland Farms owns a two-thirds Limited Partnership in Gulf Oil, L.P. (GLP). GLP is a large independent wholesaler of branded and unbranded refined petroleum products in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states. For additional information, visit the website at www.cumberlandfarms.com.

About UNICCO

UNICCO Service Company is one of North America's largest and most successful Integrated Facilities Services companies with over $600 million in annualized sales, 20,000 employees and a 95 percent customer retention rate. The company has over 50 years of facilities outsourcing experience, including maintenance, operations, engineering, cleaning, lighting and administrative/office services for 1,000 retail, commercial, corporate, industrial, education and government customers. UNICCO's advanced facilities technologies include its proprietary myUNICCO.com customer portal and the UNI-Q(sm) palmtop inspection system, best-of-breed computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), eProcurement, and 24x7x365 call centers. For further information, call 888-751-9100 or visit www.unicco.com.

NOTE: UNICCO is a registered trademark and UNI-Q is a service mark of UNICCO Service Company. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.