Dive Brief:
- Kwik Trip opened its first store in Michigan on Sept. 14, in Ironwood, about 18 miles south of Lake Superior in the state’s Upper Peninsula.
- The c-store chain will open another location in Michigan this year and plans for more to come in 2023, said John McHugh, director of public relations for Kwik Trip.
- Kwik Trip’s move to Michigan marks yet another occasion of a c-store chain expanding to a new region — a trend that has seen tremendous activity this summer.
Dive Insight:
The move to Michigan made sense for Kwik Trip, which had already been growing its footprint further north, McHugh said. Kwik Trip’s next Michigan store opening this year will be located in Bessemer, about seven miles west of Ironwood.
“We have been growing with new stores in Northern Wisconsin, so the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was the next logical step in that growth,” McHugh said.
Like the rest of Kwik Trip’s stores, the site in Ironwood features the chain’s hot foods program, which includes take-home meals like chicken and bacon macaroni and cheese; fettuccine alfredo with chicken; beef stroganoff; and meatloaf with mashed potatoes. The store will also offer Kwik Trip’s “value-priced” items, such as bread, milk, eggs, butter and bananas, McHugh said.
By expanding to Michigan, Kwik Trip now operates 824 c-stores in five states. The other four include Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and the company’s home state of Wisconsin. And more appear to be on the way.
In November 2021, Kwik Trip disclosed it was planning to open multiple locations in South Dakota, according to Sioux Falls Business. Two months later, Kwik Trip purchased land on the corner of 57th Street and Graystone Avenue in Sioux Falls, officially confirming the expansion. Construction for the site is expected to begin in 2023, the publication reported.
Kwik Trip is one of many c-store chains focusing on new market expansion. Just this summer, Royal Farms also moved into Michigan, Wawa began construction on its first store in Alabama, and Buc-ee’s expanded to Missouri. Additionally, EG America debuted its first Cumberland Farms stores in the Gulf Coast of Florida and Alabama, while QuikTrip opened its first c-store in Colorado.
