Casey’s reported on its fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2025 earnings call Tuesday that illicit vapes are challenging the vape category.
In response to an analyst's question about whether there has been a negative impact, Casey's President and CEO Darren Rebelez said “we believe it is impacting the vape category,” according to a transcript from financial services site AlphaSense.
Rebelez said Casey’s was talking to the tobacco manufacturers and “they’re working on trying to help influence increased enforcement in that space.”
While vapor is hurting, nicotine alternatives, like pouches, are accelerating.
“For us in the quarter, we were up about 54% in that business and that was up due to a lot of work from the merchandising team in terms of resetting the stores and giving more space allocation to those products and really leaning in there,” he said.
- Casey's General Stores Inc. is No. 3 on CSP's 2025 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by store count. GPM Investments is No. 7.
Another c-store retailer looking to lean into other nicotine alternatives is Arko Corp., the parent company of convenience retailer GPM Investments.
The retailer reported on the company’s first -quarter 2025 earnings call on May 8 that its backbar refresh is showing gains.
“Turning to our cigarette and [other tobacco products] OTP backbar refresh, to date, we have completed this project in more than 900 stores, which is driving improvement in merchandising and assortment for total nicotine,” Arko President and CEO Arie Kotler said, according to a transcript from AlphaSense.
When combined with the retailer’s extended promotional efforts, “we’re capturing market share across select OTP categories, creating momentum for in-store performance as we broaden our assortment and fine tune our promotional strategy to drive growth.”
Kotler said it has implemented “very strong” monthly OTP promotions.
“Our OTP mix continue to evolve to meet customer demand and we view it as a lever to drive basket growth amid [a] challenging micro backdrop,” he said.
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