Aug 15, 2011CONNECTICUT, 8-15-11—Black Box Intelligence LLC (BBI), Consumer Edge Research LLC (CER), GuestMetrics LLC (GM) and People Report , announced today the formation of a joint venture that will capture the combined product offerings of the 4 companies and provide revolutionary foodservice industry data and analytics. Together the four firms track the financial, consumer and human capital metrics of over 200 hospitality and restaurant companies, 60,000 households annually and one million employees. BBI provides benchmarked weekly and monthly financial reports & insights, directly captured from over 12,000 locations in the casual, fast casual, fine dining and quick service segments. GM is the leading enterprise management provider of foodservice industry spending data, and currently captures over 250M transactions per year across the quick service, fast casual, casual, fine dining, bar and hotel industries. CER is a preeminent independent research boutique firm, focused on the global consumer sector, combining primary research with rigorous analytics. People Report is the only source of benchmarked human capital metrics for public and private foodservice companies, reporting on 20,000 outlets monthly on the demographics, turnover, and compensation practices in the service sector workforce. Commenting on the new partnership, Wallace B. Doolin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of BBI said, “This joint venture allows BBI and People Report to deepen its penetration into restaurants, enter hotel foodservice and add leading macro and consumer research insights to its rich executive summary and benchmarked reports. Our combined technologies utilizing direct data feeds will fuel continued innovation in product offerings and speed of reporting. This is truly the next generation of game changing business intelligence. Our combined goal is to provide our members and clients the predictive analytics that lead to best in class performance and a sustainable competitive advantage.” Mr. Doolin is a widely recognized and respected global restaurant industry leader, who has served as the CEO of multiple brands, including Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, La Madeleine, and Buca di Beppo. His accomplishments include leading the acquisition and serving as President of Applebee’s, and leading the global expansion of T.G.I.Friday’s from 135 restaurants in 2 countries to over 750 units in 55 countries, exceeding $2 billion in revenue. He has served on the board of the National Restaurant Association for fifteen years, and was the Chairman of its Educational Foundation. Today he serves on several public, private and non-profit boards. Bill Pecoriello, CEO of Consumer Edge Research, said “I’m thrilled to be bringing the collective best in class capabilities of these four companies together to help revolutionize the data and value added insights we can collectively provide on the foodservice industry.” Prior to founding CER in January 2009, Mr. Pecoriello was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley covering the Beverages and Household/Personal Care sectors. He also spent over five years at Sanford Bernstein, where he was a Partner, and was a project manager at Mars & Co where he consulted to the senior management teams of consumer product companies.

ABOUT BLACK BOX INTELLIGENCE LLC

Black Box Intelligence was launched in 2009 as a membership model providing weekly intelligence on 12 key revenue metrics in 82 DMA’s. Additionally, on a monthly basis BBI also provides benchmarking on food, beverage and labor cost metrics as well as an overall industry insights report for our members. All reporting is done by direct data feed from its members resulting in web enabled reports through our state of the art interactive dashboards. All reporting is benchmarked to give members business Intelligence to determine how well they are performing against their key competitors and the industry overall. It is the most comprehensive product on the market. Contact: Wallace Doolin, Founder, Chairman, & CEO at wally.doolin@prbbi.com or (214) 728-2216

ABOUT PEOPLE REPORT

People Report, is the foremost provider of human capital metrics for the service sector workforce. Founded in 1995 by Joni Thomas Doolin, CEO, and a group of five chain restaurant companies, the People Report consortium has grown to represent hundreds of chains, hundreds of thousands of managers, and millions of employees. Our hallmark is dish room to boardroom business intelligence, that provides industry leading, benchmarked research for key human capital metrics, best employment practices, total rewards and compensation for chain operators, franchisees and other service sector employers. In addition to its reports and publications, People Report offers first-rate speakers, newsletters, webinars and acclaimed industry conferences throughout the year. Contact: Joni Thomas Doolin, Founder & CEO at joni.doolin@prbbi.com or (214) 437-9216

ABOUT GUESTMETRICS LLC

GuestMetrics, is the leading provider of Customer Insight Solutions for the hospitality industry and its suppliers/distributors. The GuestMetrics software is fully integrated with the leading point-of-sale (POS) systems and allows hospitality providers at every level of the market to improve business operations. For the first time in the marketplace, GuestMetrics, through its data mining process, provides beverage alcohol and food suppliers with actionable insight into consumer behavior at the guest check-level through. From world-class beverage alcohol suppliers to fine dining establishments and regional/national restaurant chains, clients depend on GuestMetrics tools to build stronger brands and drive revenue growth. For more information, please visit www.guestmetrics.com. Contact: Brian Barrett, President at bbarrett@guestmetrics.com or (703) 297-3410