Newsroom

Second Wave of vivabox™ Gift Experiences Provide Unique Giving Options this Holiday Season

Eight vivabox experiences now available featuring partnerships with best-in-class retailers

Gaithersburg, Md – November 17, 2008 – If you’re looking for value and unique gift options this holiday season, try giving an experience rather than a traditional gift. Four new experiential gifts are now being offered by Vivabox™, a Sodexo company (www.vivaboxusa.com), which now has eight signature boxes for sale from $45 to $160, including wine, barbecue and gourmet coffee experiences. Vivabox experiential gifts have two stages – first, recipients get an immediate “taste” of their experience through the items in the box they receive. Second, the gift recipient selects another gift by redeeming a gift card that is included in the box. There are currently eight vivabox themes to choose from:

• Wine
• BBQ
• Coffee
• Spa – manicure/pedicure
• Spa – massage/facial
• Tea
• Gourmet Food
• Fragrance

The newest vivabox options include:

• A Wine vivabox, where recipients receive a menu from which to select six bottles of wine that will be delivered to their door from My Wines Direct as well as a copy of Wine Spectator magazine’s guide to the basics, Essentials of Wine. The recipient also receives 12 issues of Wine Spectator magazine.
• A BBQ vivabox, which comes with a sample of grilling rubs and spices from Urban Accents, as well as a gift card to be redeemed from the BBQ Gift Menu. The menu includes premium meat selections from Omaha Steaks like Filet Mignons, Rib Eyes and Boneless Strips and a selection of rubs and spices from Urban Accents.
• A Coffee vivabox in which gift recipients can enjoy the jazz sounds of Lonnie Mardis on CD while enjoying unique coffees from 100% sustainable sources and delicious Torani Italian syrups before deciding which award-winning Jazzman’s® Café coffee blends and syrups to purchase with their enclosed gift card. Additionally, a Fragrance vivabox is now available in Sephora retail stores and online at www.vivaboxusa.com.
 

“We’re excited to be partnering with Vivabox on their new Wine box because they truly understand and value the importance of consumer choice,” said Trissie Rost, Chief Marketing Officer at My Wines Direct. “Through our meticulous process that combines expert selection and consumer tasting panels, we present wine drinkers with a choice of wines that don’t disappoint, which is a very reassuring aspect of giving and receiving the Wine vivabox.”

Vivabox is a leading European gift company that debuted in the US in October 2008 as a business unit of Sodexo, a global foodservice and facilities management company specializing in quality of life services. First introduced in Belgium in 2003, Vivabox was acquired by Sodexo in 2007 through its successful global Service Vouchers and Cards business that recently posted $10 billion in global issue volume. To learn more, or shop the current collection, visit www.vivaboxusa.com.

About Sodexo
Sodexo (www.sodexo.com), founded in 1966 by Pierre Bellon, is a world leader in Food and Facilities Management services, with more than 355,000 employees on 30,600 sites in 80 countries. For Fiscal 2008, which closed August 31, 2008, Sodexo had revenues of 13.6 billion euro. Listed on Euronext Paris, the Group has a current market capitalization of 5.6 billion euro.