Circle K Gets Hopping on Southeast Store Rebranding
OCALA, Fla. — The familiar Kangaroo Express convenience store banner will start to disappear across the Southeast over the coming weeks.
David Morgan, vice president of operations for Circle K, said all Kangaroo Express locations in Florida's Marion and Alachua counties will begin the rebranding process within the month. Their transition to Circle K stores is slated to be completed by the end of the summer, according to The Gainesville Sun.
"Ocala, Gainesville and Jacksonville, are all real big Kangaroo markets," Morgan said. "We're super excited to bring the Circle K brand to those customers."
According to the report, the transition will include swapping out the Kangaroo mascot with the Circle K logo, and some stores will get new fuel brands.
"Some will get Shell," he said. "Some of them will be Mobil. Some will be branded Circle K. But you will see Kangaroo, that brand, disappear over time completely."
In addition, all stores will offer 79-cent Polar Pop fountain drinks.
The switchover comes as Circle K prepares to build a new 5,000-square-foot convenience store in Ocala late this year. Groundbreaking is expected to happen "toward the end of this calendar year," Morgan told the newspaper.
The new Maricamp Road store will have a 24-flavor fountain area, as well as eight heads for "Froster" frozen beverages. The store also will offer a milkshake machine, two flavors of frozen yogurt, and a "Simply Great Coffee" bar where patrons can serve themselves cappuccino and espresso-based drinks, among other items, the news report added.
"We feel like that's potentially a growth area," he said. "It's in a section of town that's kind of in transition. You get people kinda going to and from town."
Circle K's parent company, Canada-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., acquired Cary, N.C.-based The Pantry Inc. — parent of the Kangaroo Express chain — in March. In September, Couche-Tard announced Circle K would become its single, global convenience store banner.
As of Oct. 11, Laval-based Couche-Tard's network comprised approximately 8,006 convenience stores throughout North America, including 6,579 stores offering road transportation fuel. Its North American network consists of 15 business units, including 11 in the United States covering 41 states and four in Canada covering all 10 provinces.
In Europe, Couche-Tard operates a broad retail network across Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Poland, the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Russia. Its European network comprised 2,217 stores as of Oct. 11, the majority of which offer road transportation fuel and convenience products, while the others are unmanned automated service stations that offer road transportation fuel only.
In addition, about 4,700 stores are operated by independent operators under the Circle K banner in 14 other countries or regions worldwide.