KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Pilot Corp. and Food City announced plans yesterday to build a new $10 million fuel terminal in Knoxville, Tenn., reported The Knoxville News Sentinel. The planned facility will procure and distribute fuel to Food City Gas'n'Go Fuel Centers in Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, and to Pilot Convenience Stores and Pilot Travel Centers throughout the region, said the report.
The facility will distribute a variety of products including gasoline, diesel, ethanol and aviation fuel, the report added.
"Our fuel centers have become an important [image-nocss] convenience for our customers," president and CEO of Food City Steve Smith said in a statement obtained by the newspaper. "This facility will allow us to better service our customer's needs."
Construction on the project, which will be located at an existing terminal complex on Middlebrook Pike in Knoxville, will begin immediately, according to the report.
Jimmy Haslam, CEO of Pilot Corp., said collaboration by the two family-owned businesses would allow the companies to "better service the fuel needs of our customers while creating jobs and supporting the local economy."
The project will create up to 10 to 15 new jobs, the newspaper said.
Headquartered in Abingdon, Va., K-VA-T Food Stores Inc., parent company of Food City, currently operates 105 retail food outlets in the tri-state regions of southeastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee. Food City currently operates 51 Gas'n'Go fuel centers.
Pilot Travel Centers LLC is the nation's largest retail operator of Travel Centers, catering to the professional driver and traveling motorist in 41 states with more than 300 retail interstate properties. The company is headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., and is held in a partnership between Pilot Corp., wholly owned by the Haslam family, and Propeller Corp., wholly owned by the funds advised by CVC Capital Partners, a leading global private-equity firm.
Pilot recently entered into a preliminary merger agreement with Ogden, Utah-based Flying J Inc. for its 250-unit travel plaza business after Flying J's bankruptcy.
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