Casey’s merchant says Wawa and Sheetz made the gas-station meal normal
Tom Brennan put the pizza rank in a sentence about the neighbors, not about a new SKU.
Aug. 29, 2026 — Tom Brennan, Casey’s chief merchandising officer, told Fortune the company is the fifth-largest pizza chain in the country by prepared food and dispensed beverage, and the third-largest convenience store. The sentence under the rank is the merchandising one. He said 7-Eleven stores he ran in the Mid-Atlantic led that company in U.S. food sales because Wawa and Sheetz had “legitimized eating at a gas station.”
That is a channel fact, not a topping story. Once the customer accepts the lot as a place to eat, the pizza, the breakfast item, and the dispensed drink stop being a stunt and start being a facing. A snack brand that still pitches convenience as a small grocery aisle is selling to a trip the customer has already redefined.
The pack that wins next to that meal is still a single. The meal did not turn the store into a supermarket. It turned the stop into a longer one. The cooler and the impulse set have to earn the extra minute. A sharing bag still does not.
Source: Tom Brennan, Fortune, Aug. 29, 2026.