Jun 15, 2005 9:49 AM, from staff and wire reports

Tree of Life Inc has reached a distribution agreement with Minyard Food Stores, a 69-store group based in the Dallas-Fort Worth TX area, to serve as the company's distributor of natural and specialty food products.

Based in Coppell TX, Minyard has been in business for 72 years and operates under three separate banners: Minyard, Sack'n Save, and Carnival. It has a workforce of 5,200 employees.

A marketer and distributor of natural and specialty foods in the United States and Canada, Tree of Life is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dutch-based Royal Wessanen NV, which has more than 200 hundred years of food industry experience.