Foodservice is doing well at Casey’s General Stores.
Inside the store, the prepared food and dispensed beverage category “saw guests responding well to our innovation and promotional activity within the category,” Darren Rebelez, Casey’s General Stores chairman, president and CEO, said Wednesday during Casey’s 2026 second-quarter earnings call for the three months ending Oct. 31.
The Ankeny, Iowa-based convenience-store chain also experienced margin expansion, primarily driven by the grocery and general merchandise category, Rebelez said.
- Casey’s General Stores Inc. is No. 3 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by store count.
“This was underpinned by increased guest traffic as effective merchandising, along with solid store-level execution, is leading more guests shopping in our stores,” Rebelez said.
Total inside sales for the quarter were $1.66 billion, an increase of $190 million or 13% from the prior year, said Steve Bramlage, Casey’s chief financial officer.
Prepared food and dispensed beverage sales rose by $58 million to $468 million in the quarter, an increase of 12%, Rebelez said, while grocery and general merchandise sales increased by $141 million to $1.19 billion, an increase of 13.4%.
Inside same store sales were up 3.3% for the second quarter, or 7.5% on a two-year stack basis, with an average margin of 42.4%, Rebelez said, adding that the two-year stack was an acceleration from the first quarter.
“Same-store prepared food and dispensed beverage was quite strong as sales were up 4.8% or 10.3% on a two-year stack basis with an average margin of 58.6%,” he said. “All [pizza] pies and hot sandwiches in all dayparts performed well in the quarter.”
Breakfast performed “exceptionally well with our maple waffle breakfast sandwich, highlighting the innovation our culinary team is bringing to the category,” he said. “Margin was down approximately 10 basis points from the prior year, as a lower margin from the CEFCO stores was nearly offset by improvement in waste in cost of goods management.”
Casey’s in early 2026 will begin rebranding the 198 CEFCO Convenience Stores it acquired in November 2024, Rebelez said during the call.
Casey’s has about 2,900 convenience stores in 20 states. It is the third-largest c-store retailer and the fifth-largest pizza chain in the United States. In fiscal 2025, Casey’s built or acquired 270 stores, a record for the company. The majority came via Casey’s November 2024 acquisition of 198 CEFCO stores from Fikes Wholesale.
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