And, for the first time, Wawa is trying Florida, where it began work last year on the first of 50
stores it hopes will cater to hoagie-hungry expatriates and tourists by 2014.
It's a thousand-mile step for the $5 billion (yearly sales) company, whose current network sprawls from North Jersey to the Poconos to central Virginia.
Florida is "an underserved market," says Howard Stoeckel, Wawa's chief executive officer. "We feel the economy has bottomed. We'd like to be positioned as the economy grows."
Why not, say, Pittsburgh? "Sheetz country," Stoeckel says, citing the "respected" Altoona, Pa.-based chain. Carolinas? Already colonized by efficient, Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip. Wawa won't do acquisitions. So "we're leapfrogging" to Orlando and Tampa.
Why grow at all? As a private company, it is 49 percent owned by the Wood family trust, representing descendants of Wawa's founders, a family with old South Jersey merchant and industrial roots. It is nearly 30 percent owned by an employee stock ownership program (ESOP), the rest by Wood family members and managers. Because of that, Wawa can set sales, profit, and growth goals. But even private owners expect rising profits, which means more stores, says Stoeckel, who started his career at Wanamaker's and admires Wegmans Food Markets Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co.
The slow economy makes it easier to hire and keep workers; turnover is down more than half, to about 40 percent annually. Land costs are also down. That makes growth easier: New Wawa openings have risen, from 10 to 12 a year in the late 2000s, to 20 last year, and a planned 28 this year, including the first seven in Florida.
