Casey’s General Stores reported results for the three months ending April 30 earlier this week, reporting a 5.6% inside sales increase compared to the prior year.

Other highlights included:

• Casey’s Rewards had 7.9 million members by year-end.
• The company built or acquired 154 stores in the fiscal year.
• Same-store fuel gallons ticked up with a 0.9% increase.
• Prepared food was up 8.8% in terms of same-store sales for the quarter. For the fiscal year, prepared food was up 6.8%.

Casey’s CEO Darren Rebelez briefed members of the media yesterday.

On making the stores easier to operate:

Rebelez said that creating efficiencies has been a priority. One example is using an AI system to take pizza orders, while another is washing the linens used in the stores’ kitchens. In the past, each location had its own washer and dryer, but outsourcing that function has saved “a couple million bucks” while resulting in cleaner towels.

On expansion:

Maintaining strong teams for organic expansion and acquisition gives Casey the ability to flex based on market conditions. The retailer is “a little bit ahead of pace” in its goal of opening 350 stores in three years. While the potential for a larger deal “is always there,” the retailer has a “deep pipeline” when it comes to smaller, single-site acquisitions.

On EV charging:

About 40 Casey’s locations have EV chargers currently. Within the Casey’s footprint, EV penetration remains low, at approximately 1%. “We don’t want to get too aggressive on the investment side,” Rebelez noted, since the possibility looms that “by the time the demand gets there, the charging technology that we just spent the money on is obsolete.” That said, the retailer is “definitely keeping an eye on the EV trends.”

On different formats:

“We have about 15 travel centers that we’ve either bought or built over time, and we take a similar approach as we do with everything else. If it’s the right asset in the right place, we have an opportunity,” Rebelez said.

Casey’s also is using its goodstop by Casey’s brand for stores that don’t have room for a kitchen. “In every acquisition of some sort of size, there’s always a couple of assets that we won’t be able to put a kitchen into but may still be viable from the traditional convenience store perspective. What we have learned is that when you put the Casey’s sign on a store, people come into that store and they expect you to have pizza … so we developed goodstop to address those situations,” Rebelez said.