A Lucky 13 C-store Chains Land on Hot 100 Retailers List

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The convenience store industry more than doubled the number of companies on STORES Magazine's annual Hot 100 Retailers list. Thirteen c-stores appear on the annual list, which ranked retail companies based on their increase in domestic sales between 2014 and 2015.

GPM Investments was the top c-store chain on the list at No. 3, with 119 percent sales growth, followed by No. 12 Alimentation Couche-Tard (34 percent) and No. 38 Casey's General Stores (13 percent.)

Other c-stores on the list were No. 39 CST Brands (13 percent sales growth); No. 42 Kwik Trip (12 percent); No. 50 ampm (11 percent); No. 54 Stripes Convenience Stores (10 percent); No. 62 Speedway (8 percent); No. 71 Wawa (8 percent); No. 79 Houchens Industries (7 percent); No. 84 Sheetz (7 percent); No. 87 CEFCO Convenience Stores (7 percent); and No. 100 QuikTrip Corp. (6 percent).

The 2015 list included just six c-store chains, as CSNews Online previously reported.

"The themes we see highlighted this year – consolidation, specialization and digitization – are all important ones for all retailers, irrespective of size," Bryan Gildenberg, Kantar Retail chief knowledge officer, said. "Seven of the top 10 grew through significant acquisition, to gain scale and market scope in this dynamic, changing environment.

Both public and private companies that have at least $300 million in sales were eligible for the ranked list, which was compiled by Kantar Retail.

STORES Media is the publishing group of the National Retail Federation.