DALLAS -- Where pizza joints and ethnic restaurants once dominated home delivery, Casey's General Stores Inc. is pioneering that opportunity for the convenience-store channel.
At CSP's Convenience Retailing University (CRU) conference in Dallas, the Ankeny, Iowa-based chain received a CRU Award for Foodservice Innovation for its pizza-delivery service, something that has been evolving for over three years. Darryl Bacon, the company's vice president of foodservice, accepted the award on behalf of Casey's.
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"We emphasize customer service … where the customer comes into the store and has a positive experience," said Bill Walljasper, senior vice president and CFO for Casey's.
One aspect of that service is offering the right product at the right time of day. "An example of that is our pizza delivery and [expanding] hours of operation," he said.
The company has also recently started accepting online orders, with both the online and delivery programs including the chain's sub sandwich offer. The online-ordering program began with 28 stores and is set to expand to 68 this spring, with more to be added throughout the year, Walljasper said.
For years, this chain of more than 1,800 stores has stood out as being the industry's No. 1 seller of pizza and, in fact, is one of the country's largest purveyors of pizza outright.
Casey's piloted its pizza delivery program knowing that taking its pizza to the road could potentially hurt sales in the store, officials said. But it didn't.
Bacon said it now offers delivery at 333 stores, advertising via social media, newspapers, flyers and in some cases, radio.
One of the biggest orders that Casey's received was for 121 pizzas at a store in Indianola, Iowa, where they fed people attending a benefit for a cancer patient.
"People love that we deliver," said Rosie Sellers, a store manager for Casey's. "Our best-selling pizza is pepperoni, and we make the dough daily."
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