LA CROSSE, Wis. -- Kwik Trip Inc. is truly a unique animal in an industry often criticized for its sameness. The progressive retailer based in La Crosse, Wis., has taken as many processes and functions in house as possible, relying less and less on third parties for store distribution, menu development, site cleanliness and maintenanceand repair.
Few if any companies in the industry exert as much control over their destiny as Kwik Trip, which operates more than 380 convenience stores, travel centers and smoke shops in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Why? [image-nocss] Because Kwik Trip believes it can do it better and cheaper, making life easier for co-workers and improving the shopping experience for the 4 million customers who visit Kwik Trip stores every week.
Having roots in the supermarket business has helped the chain discover efficiencies more common to grocers than convenience retailers. Intricate self-distribution and store-support systems -- including an internal ripening operation for its almost legendary bananas -- have afforded Kwik Trip many advantages over its peers, all dreamed up by the company's braintrust at the corporate Support Center in La Crosse.
Existing or in-development initiatives Kwik Trip has created to simplify retail operations for managers and other store-level co-workers include:
Reduced store labor. Kwik Trip plans to add another duty to the Support Center's to do list designed to limit store-level labor. We'll be doing individual hot-dog buns that are split and packaged in pouches, vice president of operations support Steve Loehr told CSP Daily News. By individually wrapping the buns at the bakery, each store will save $1,000 in labor. Plus, there's the added food-safety issue because they're being wrapped in a controlled, safe environment.Proactive monitoring. Kwik Trip's Communication Center helps store-level co-workers solve problems ranging from failing equipment and tank polling to bookwork and back-office issues. It also monitors stores for burglary, energy usage and climate control. Handling all in-store monitoring in house saves the company more than $300,000 a year. Our stores would give up a lot before they gave up the Communication Center, said Loehr. It's really the communication hub of Kwik Trip.Unexpected efficiencies. We can buy forward truckloads of product if, for example, we know the price of sugar is going up, said Loehr. We have the space [in the warehouse]. Plus, there are other unexpected efficiencies of running a support center and a network of convenience stores. We can sell our shortening buckets in our stores, he said. Our customers like to have good ice-fishing buckets.Commitment to cleanliness. Kwik Trip's focus on food safety and quality assurance goes far beyond the realm of food handling. The company invested more than $1 million in a tote-washing machine imported from the Netherlands to guard against food-safety problems. It also washes its own rugs, which saves the company about $500,000 a year. It just didn't seem that difficult, Loehr said.Cross-training on steroids. Members of Kwik Trip's store-engineering team handle just about anything related to store maintenance, regardless of his or her particular discipline. If you have a problem at a store in Waukesha, you might have a carpenter that fixes an oven or a coffee machine, said director of store engineering Erik Peterson. The cross-training gives us that flexibility.Spotless restrooms. Starting this year, restrooms in all stores will be deep cleaned at least semi-annually. Furthermore, each store will receive a small pressure-washer for routine maintenance. They should be able to clean the bathrooms in about one-third of the time, and not with a mop and bucket, said Peterson. Restrooms are the No. 1 thing people look at when gauging how clean your kitchen might be.In-store differentiation. Dr. Jay Ellingson, director of food safety and quality assurance, is protecting Kwik Trip from food-safety issues while helping the company move in new directions. On the horizon are in-store health clinics, whereby Kwik Trip intends to bring physicians into its stores to examine patients and cure ailments such as the common cold, according to Ellingson. We won't be doing any surgeries there, he joked, but these types of clinics are in the future for us.CSP recently honored Kwik Trip with the Excellence in Execution Award at the Convenience Retailing Conference in Phoenix. Kwik Trip's vertically integrated business model will be detailed in-depth in the May issue of CSP magazine.
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