Casey’s Foodservice Team Accepts Innovators Award
ANKENY, Iowa — Casey’s General Stores Inc., one of the nation’s largest publicly held convenience store retailers, was presented with a gold medal in the Convenience Store News 2014 Foodservice Innovators Awards at the company’s headquarters here last week.
The CSNews Foodservice Innovators Awards, sponsored by Tyson Foods, recognizes convenience retail leaders that are raising the bar on quality, service and innovation in the fast-growing and critically important category of foodservice.
On Friday, CSNews Editorial Director Don Longo and Tyson Foods executives traveled to Ankeny to present Casey’s with a gold medal for having the Best New Foodservice Program in 2014.
Longo and Tyson Foods’ Vice President of Convenience Store Sales & Marketing Kristin Bird presented the award to Casey’s foodservice team, led by Darryl Bacon, vice president of foodservice. Also in attendance were several of the company’s senior-level executives, including Chairman and CEO Robert Myers, President and Chief Operating Officer Terry Handley, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Bill Walljasper, Marketing Vice President Michael Richardson, and Vice President of Transportation and Distribution Jay Blair.
During the presentation ceremony, Longo noted that Casey’s was honored with a silver medal as Foodservice Innovator of the Year in 2012, when it first began offering pizza delivery, which has now spread to more than 225 of its stores.
This year’s gold-medal win in the Best New Foodservice Program category recognizes Casey’s for innovations in its robust pizza business, including its new, unique standalone pizza store.
Winners in the Foodservice Innovators Awards program are chosen by CSNews’ 18-member panel of How To Do World-Class Foodservice experts. This year, the How To Crew lauded Casey’s new Pizza Express location in Pleasant Hill, Iowa, as an innovative addition to its drive to dominate the pizza business in its markets.
The retailer’s first standalone pizza restaurant is a 1,600-square-foot location that offers pizza (whole and by the slice), chicken wings, breadsticks, fountain drinks and a self-serve frozen yogurt bar. Though still a test concept, Casey’s earlier this year announced plans to open five more Pizza Express locations in the Des Moines, Iowa, metro area.
Casey’s operates more than 1,800 traditional convenience stores as well.
Click here to view all the 2014 CSNews Foodservice Innovators Awards winners, along with video and commentary.