Casey Creegan, manager of merchandising at Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, has been inducted into the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA) 2023 Private Label Hall of Fame.
Creegan (pictured) was among 16 honored last month by the PLMA and Store Brands magazine in Orlando, Florida, during the group’s Annual Meeting and Leadership Conference.
Creegan, nominated by Emilee Albright, a brand manager at Love’s who Creegan supervises, was one of four winners in the Private Brand Innovator category. The other categories are Next Gen Private Label Leader, Private Brand Champion and Lifetime Achievement.
“Casey has really been the pioneer of Love’s private-label business from brand building and developing our private-label strategic models,” Albright told CSP. “She has a great personality and work ethic and is full of creative ideas that push merchandising to the next level. She has led teams in developing brands and products and our self-distributing platform. I am fortunate to work with her to help make her ideas come to life.”
Creegan said one nice aspect to winning was recognition for the convenience-store industry. “It’s exciting because we are kind of new to PLMA,” she told CSP. “It’s a great organization, but it’s mostly mass retailers and grocers as well as suppliers and manufacturers. So, it was nice to make an entry for the travel stop industry and convenience stores and let them know that we’re doing a lot of private label products too.”
Creegan is the creator and prime mover of the private-label branding structure at Oklahoma City-based Love’s, PLMA said.
“Casey introduced the idea of bringing private label to Love’s in 2017, and today the company carries more than 400 products across many categories,” the group said. “She has spent more than 10 years in the retail industry focusing on brand building, licensing and category management and brings new development strategies to Love’s branding. Casey works closely in creating Love’s self-distribution model with the sourcing team to support hundreds of new items introduced each year.”
- Love’s is No. 14 on CSP's 2023 Top 40 update to the 2022 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by size. Watch for the full 2023 list in the June issue of CSPmagazine and online at CSP Daily News.
In selecting items for the retailer’s shelves, Creegan said they are “really careful what we put the Love’s name on since it is the family's name.”
They started with “really core items,” she said, such as diesel exhaust fluid and diesel anti-gel, “a huge product for our drivers,” and other chemicals and diesel additives.
“We also have a brand that’s tailored specifically for the professional driver called Amarillo Supply Co.,” she said. “The namesake comes from our very first travel stop, which was in Amarillo, Texas. It is all safety items, lights and lenses, wiper blades, anything the driver needs to do their job better. And then we also have a Mobile to Go brand, which is mobile accessories and electronics.”
With consumables, Creegan said there is a tiered approach between what gets a premium Love’s label versus what gets a “brand or better badge Love’s label. We really try to leverage the research and development of the brands, the national brand that we are comparing to, but also partnering with our vendors. We never take a product out of the store. With our anti gel for example, we kept (name brand) Power Service in and give the customer the choice of the national brand leader or the Love’s brand, and just match that quality but give them a better value on it.”
The top consumable product is Love’s branded water, followed by its beef jerky—“Huge for us,” Creegan said—of which there are two lines.
“The 16 honorees represent the best of the best from across the world of private label and showcase the depth of talent the industry has to offer,” said Greg Sleter, Store Brands magazine executive editor and associate publisher, said. “This august group of retailers and suppliers have had a major impact on the private-label business and will continue to do so in the years ahead.”
PLMA is a non-profit trade organization founded in 1979 to promote the store brands industry. With executive offices in New York and International Council offices in Amsterdam, the PLMA represents more than 4,000 member companies worldwide.
Love’s has more than 610 locations in 42 states. It provides professional truck drivers and motorists with 24-hour access to purchase gasoline, diesel fuel, coffee, restaurant offerings and more. Love’s has more than 430 truck service centers, which include Speedco and Love’s Truck Care locations. Love’s and Speedco combined is the largest oil change, preventive maintenance and total truck care nationwide network with more than 1,500 maintenance bays and 1,200 emergency roadside vehicles available for customers.