The Growth Stories of CSNews' 2018 Top 20 Growth Chains

As in past years, the 2018 Convenience Store News Top 20 Growth Chains ranking is dominated at the top by large, acquisition-minded consolidators, and scattered among them a group of strong regional players that have increased their store counts considerably through organic growth.

Led by Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. — which alone grew its U.S. store count by 23.4 percent between January 2017 and January 2018 — this year’s CSNews Top 20 Growth Chains combined added 2,573 stores, equating to an 11.5-percent increase. What’s more, they added nearly 1,200 more stores year over year than 2017’s top growers. The 2017 Top 20 Growth Chains added 1,396 stores combined, equating to a 5.9-percent increase.

The exclusive CSNews Top 20 Growth Chains report is based on store count figures provided by TDLinx, a service of Nielsen. This is the seventh year that CSNews has partnered with TDLinx to identify the c-store retailers that added the most convenience stores in the past year. A convenience store is defined as a store that includes a broad merchandising mix, extended hours of operation and a minimum of 500 SKUs. Fueling stations with small kiosk stores do not meet the official definition and thus are not reflected in TDLinx’s store count figures.

Click below to download our full report detailing how each company earned its spot on this year’s ranking.