Six Convenience Retailers Take Spots Among Top Private Companies
NATIONAL REPORT — Several of the convenience store industry's well-known brands are ranked among America's Top Private Companies.
According to the annual report by Forbes, 275 firms made the 2024 list. Of those, 48% have been on for the past 10 years, 26 new companies entered the ranks this year and 13 dropped from the rankings.
The convenience and gas companies appearing on the 2024 list are:
- Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores (No. 11), based in Oklahoma City with $24 billion in revenue and 40,000 employees
- QuikTrip Corp. (No. 20), based in Tulsa, Okla., with $19.6 billion in revenue and 33,027 employees
- Wawa Inc. (No. 22), based in Media, Pa., with $18.8 billion in revenue and 47,000 employees
- RaceTrac Inc. (No. 24), based in Atlanta with $17 billion in revenue and 10,5000 employees
- Sheetz Inc. (No. 30), based in Altoona, Pa., with $14 billion in revenue and 25,000 employees
- FJ Management (No. 89), based in Salt Lake City with $7 billion in revenue and 15,000 employees
All six were also the only convenience and gas companies to appear on the 2023 America's Top Private Companies list. Last year, Love's held the No. 9 spot, QuikTrip held the No. 17 spot, RaceTrac held the No. 18 spot, Wawa held the No. 20 spot, Sheetz held the No. 27 and FJ Management, the parent company to Maverik — Adventure's First Stop and most recently Kum & Go, held the No. 81 spot.
The top five companies are on the 2024 list are:
- Cargill ($160 billion in revenue and 160,000 employees)
- Koch ($125 billion in revenue and 120,000 employees)
- Publix Super Markets ($57.1 billion in revenue and 255,000 employees)
- Mars ($50 billion in revenue and 150,000 employees)
- H-E-B Grocery Co. ($46.5 billion in revenue and 154,000 employees)
Forbes has been tracking America's largest private companies since 1985. This year's ranking comprises 275 companies — the largest since 2008, the last year before the threshold was doubled to $2 billion, according to the news outlet.
Companies are ranked by revenue for the most recently completed fiscal year. For more than 85% of the list members, that means calendar 2023. Others have fiscal years that ended as recently as October 2024.