CHICAGO — With the collective brain power of the attendees at NACS’ 2016 State of the Industry Summit in Chicago, insights and prognostications ran deep into convenience-store operations and beyond. Here are some of the more inspiring revelations collected by CSP editors.

Political Prognostication

Economic indicators—and the sentiment of NACS State of the Industry Summit attendees—suggest that Hillary Clinton will be elected president of the United States in 2016. While 52% of the retailers surveyed said they support none of the major presidential candidates, 74% expect Hillary to win.

Smartt Idea

You don’t have to be a mega-chain to produce innovation. Kevin Smartt, CEO of Austin, Texas-based Kwik Chek Food Stores Inc., is unveiling a new store this summer. The 6,100-square-foot Kwik Café & Market will feature beer and wine served by the glass and a prepared-foodservice program that will fill about half the store.

A Long Sprint

Sprint Food Stores’ new 11,000-square-foot Metro Market store design in Augusta, Ga., is aiming for the high end with a diverse and ample craft-beer set, touch-screen ordering and a variety of foodservice offers, including hot dogs, prepared sandwiches, hot and cold dispensed beverages and a gourmet-to-go section.

A Kick in the Gas

In 2015, gasoline consumption made a comeback. “In 2007, many analysts believed [gas consumption] had peaked. We would never sell that much gas again. Not true—we’re catching up,” said RaceTrac Petroleum president Billy Milam.

Wage Engaged?

When asked how they are addressing increasing turnover in this environment of improving unemployment, only 15% of attendees at the SOI Summit said they were raising wages. Instead, the majority said they were focusing on employee retention efforts.

On the Other Hand

Jeff Wrobel, CMO of Kwik Trip, has a different way of thinking about the cost of increasing wages: Yes, it costs money to pay people more, but it also costs money to invest and train new staff members if turnover rates are high.

Costs Are Rising, Too

Rising direct-store operating expenses—from wages (up 7.4%) to health insurance (up 12.5%), among others—are threatening to undo many of the economic gains that c-store retailers have made over the past year unless they are gotten under control, per Milam of RaceTrac.

CVS Pharmacy y mas

A CVS drug store in Miami that has fully bilingual signage and employees. It’s a test for now, but odds are such a concept will do exceptionally well.

Cool Quotes

• “We are absolutely kicking butts and taking names in [foodservice].” —Billy Milam, president of RaceTrac Petroleum Inc.
• “Watch the QSRs closely, because we are both going after the same customer.” —Andy Jones, president and CEO of Sprint Food Stores
• “Wear the briefs. Walk a day in your user’s shoes. Be the customer.” —David Schonthal, clinical assistant professor of innovation and entrepreneurship for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, on advice he gave to a designer of adult diapers who didn’t know how it felt to wear them to the gym or the movies. The same words of wisdom can be applied to the c-store.
• “Millennials are 27% of the U.S. population but account for 41% of shopping trips. They are the snacking generation. Salty snacks are a great opportunity to capture these millennial grazers.” —Jones of Sprint Food Stores

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — Valentine Stores Inc. announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of Sunoco LP to sell its retail convenience-store business serving Upstate New York to Sunoco.

The transaction includes 18 Valentine Stores locations. These include two Tim Hortons and five Subway quick-service restaurants inside of these locations, as well as one standalone Tim Hortons and one Tim Hortons in a convenience store operated by a third party.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2016, subject to confirmatory due diligence and other customary closing conditions.

Robert Valentine of Trefethen Advisors LLC is serving as advisor to Valentine Stores in this transaction.

Watch for details on CSPnet.com and in CSP Daily News.

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — Valentine Stores Inc. announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of Sunoco LP to sell its retail convenience-store business serving Upstate New York to Sunoco.

The transaction includes 18 Valentine Stores locations. These include two Tim Hortons and five Subway quick-service restaurants inside of these locations, as well as one standalone Tim Hortons and one Tim Hortons in a convenience store operated by a third party.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2016, subject to confirmatory due diligence and other customary closing conditions.

Robert Valentine of Trefethen Advisors LLC is serving as advisor to Valentine Stores in this transaction.

Watch for details on CSPnet.com and in CSP Daily News.

WATERTOWN, N.Y. — Valentine Stores Inc. announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of Sunoco LP to sell its retail convenience-store business serving Upstate New York to Sunoco.

The transaction includes 18 Valentine Stores locations. These include two Tim Hortons and five Subway quick-service restaurants inside of these locations, as well as one standalone Tim Hortons and one Tim Hortons in a convenience store operated by a third party.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2016, subject to confirmatory due diligence and other customary closing conditions.

Robert Valentine of Trefethen Advisors LLC is serving as advisor to Valentine Stores in this transaction.

Watch for details on CSPnet.com and in CSP Daily News.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A company that owns a large network of gas stations and convenience stores across the Northeast has expanded into western Massachusetts, adding 22 retail sites through long-term leases with O’Connell Oil Associates, reported The Berkshire Eagle.

Waltham, Mass.-based Global Partners has acquired the 22 Convenience Plus outlets, located in the Pittsfield and Springfield, Mass., areas.

The sites sell Mobil or Shell gasoline.

Founded in 1925 and based in Pittsfield, O’Connell Oil operates 29 Convenience Plus c-stores, seven gas stations, a wholesale gasoline business and full-service commercial and residential plumbing, heating and air conditioning departments, according to the company’s website.

Global Partners is a master limited partnership (MLP) that owns or supplies gas stations under a variety of brands including Mobil, Exxon, Shell, Sunoco, CITGO and Global. The gas stations are operated by Global Partners’ Alliance Energy division, which operates 540 stations in New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Watch for details on CSPnet.com and in CSP Daily News.

WASHINGTON — Tobacco industry and anti-tobacco groups are expecting the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) this month to release its long-awaited final rule “deeming” whether it can regulate cigars and electronic cigarettes, according to a report by The Hill.

While FDA spokesperson Michael Felberbaum told the newspaper that he did not have any update to share on the timing of the deeming rule’s release, most industry observers believe a final rule is imminent.

“The proposed rule came out in April 2014, and last spring they said they would be done by summer,” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told the Hill. “Then last June, they said they’d be done by the end of the summer. I guess they never said which year.”

Myers said the delays in releasing the final rule have damaged the agency’s credibility.

The delay has prompted speculation on what could be holding up the rule.

Ray Story, CEO of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association (TVECA), believes the agency is hung up on one provision–a mandate that requires any nicotine delivery devices that hit stores after Feb. 15, 2007, to apply retroactively for approval, the Pre-Market Tobacco Application (PMTA) process.

Story argues that provision alone will wipe out the e-cigarette industry, which didn’t take off until after 2007.

The FDA has said it does not have the authority to alter or amend that date, set by statute in the Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act signed into law by President Obama in 2009.

Story said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is working on legislation to change the date. Duncan’s chief of staff Joe Kasper dismissed the FDA’s claims that the agency’s hands are tied by statute, calling the argument “bunk.”

The legislation is intended to ensure e-cigarettes are not regulated like traditional tobacco products.

“Vaping is not the same as smoking traditional tobacco, and it shouldn’t be treated that way,” Kasper said. “Vaping is really a proxy war for anti-tobacco forces, and there’s nothing they want more than to continue associating vaping with regular tobacco.”

In a separate statement, another group, the Vapor Technology Association (VTA), said, “The FDA’s U.S. regulatory policy … will only serve to eliminate products that have high acceptance among adult cigarette smokers, and ultimately harm the broader public health goal of deterring tobacco use.”

“Despite an overabundance of distorted and misleading information propagated by some in the public health community, the science is clear–responsibly manufactured vapor products are not only a safer alternative to traditional combustible products, but also provide smokers with a viable path to reducing their tobacco consumption and quitting altogether,” said Tony Abboud, VTA’s national legislative director. “The FDA’s actions will not improve our nation’s public health objectives. To the contrary, they will yank responsibly manufactured vapor products from the hands of adult smokers and replace them with the cigarettes they had been trying to give up.”

“Moreover, by simply dumping vapor technology products into an already antiquated federal regulatory scheme, the FDA will, in one stroke, wipe out nearly a decade of widespread consumer acceptance of these products. At the same time, the FDA will kill nearly a decade of innovation in the vapor technology industry and the many thousands of small and mid-size businesses in communities across this country who have invested in establishing retail stores and developing new technologies. … If enforced as drafted, the unreasonable and excessive regulations proposed by the FDA will only serve to put these innovators out of business, their employees out of work, and will hand deliver Big Tobacco a monopoly on vapor products.”

WAWA, Pa. — Wawa Inc. honored its 52nd anniversary in retail, on the week of its founding in 1964, by holding “Wawa Day” on April 14. The convenience-store chain celebrated the occasion by offering customers free coffee of any size all day and chainwide.

Convenience Store Products celebrated the iconic c-store chain’s birthday with a look at the products that helped make it famous.

Arguably the chain’s most-craved, most-famous product is the Wawa Hoagie. This sandwich actually has its own day and its own festival. Last year, organizers expected to dish out 5 tons of hoagies to lucky visitors. The first Wawa Hoagie Day was commemorated with a free, 500-foot hoagie at Philadelphia City Hall in 1992. On that day, then-Mayor Ed Rendell proclaimed the hoagie the “Official Sandwich of Philadelphia.”

Click here to take a look at all of the products.

Wawa also posted a video (watch it below) on social media highlighting some of its employees that it calls “Day Brighterners.”

A privately held company, Wawa began in 1803 as an iron foundry in New Jersey. Toward the end of the 19th century, owner George Wood took an interest in dairy farming, and the family began a small processing plant in Wawa, Pa., in 1902. As home delivery of milk declined in the early 1960s, Grahame Wood, George’s grandson, opened the first Wawa Food Market in 1964 as an outlet for dairy products.

A chain of more than 700 convenience stores (more than 435 offering gasoline), Wawa stores are located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Florida. The stores offer a large fresh foodservice selection, including Wawa brands such as built-to-order hoagies, freshly brewed coffee, hot breakfast sandwiches, built-to-order specialty beverages and soups, sides and snacks.

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Old Dutch potato chips are again available in 7-Eleven convenience stores across Canada. The reunion of these two popular brands comes after 7-Eleven customers asked to have Old Dutch potato chips back on the shelves, Old Dutch said.

Customers can find Old Dutch traditional flavor favorites such as Ketchup, Rip-L and Dutch Crunch Jalapeno Cheddar Kettle chips; the new Ridgies selection of appetizer and food truck-themed chips; and the Hawkins Cheezies, among others, in 7-Eleven stores now.

Old Dutch chips are produced in Manitoba, known as the “Slurpee Capital of the World,” and have been for six decades in addition to production in Calgary, Alberta, and Hartland, New Brunswick.

“We’re excited to welcome Old Dutch potato chips back into our stores. Old Dutch is a beloved and nostalgic brand that many Canadians have grown up with, and we look forward to reuniting Slurpee with Old Dutch snacks,” said Nick Angelo, senior director of merchandising for 7-Eleven Canada Inc.

“We are thrilled to have Old Dutch products sold again in 7-Eleven stores and are very excited to rekindle our relationship with 7-Eleven and their customers across Canada,” said Scott Kelemen, national director of marketing for Old Dutch Foods Ltd., Winnipeg, Manitoba.

7-Eleven Canada is based in Vancouver, B.C.

Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses nearly 10,500 7-Eleven convenience stores in North America. Globally, there are more than 56,200 7-Eleven stores in 16 countries

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman earlier this month announced a $10.75 million settlement with Exxon Mobil Corp. to reimburse the New York Environmental Protection and Spill Compensation Fund (Oil Spill Fund) for oil spill cleanup and petroleum contamination removal costs at eight locations across the state.

The settlement reimburses the Oil Spill Fund for all of its costs with interest for the eight sites.

ExxonMobil and ExxonMobil Oil Corp., individually and as successors-in-interest to Mobil Oil Corp. and Mobil Corp., operated the sites of the spills as gas stations, some as early as the 1930s.

The eight sites included in the settlement are Hilltop Service Station in Mahopac (Putnam County); Joe’s Country Convenience Store in Campbell Hall (Orange County); Raceway Exxon in Monticello (Sullivan County); Courtney George Service Station in Albany (Albany County); Zanella’s Market Hill Service in Amsterdam (Montgomery County); Harry’s Service Station in Jordan (Onondaga County); Scio Mini Mart in Scio (Allegany County); and Boller’s Auto Sales in West Seneca (Erie County).

According to the agreement, ExxonMobil will also assume all future remediation activities at four of the eight sites where the cleanup efforts are ongoing or reimburse the Oil Spill Fund for any additional remediation expenses incurred.

“This settlement transfers the responsibility of eight oil spill cleanups from taxpayers to the spiller, where it belongs,” said DiNapoli.

“Oil spills are costly and dangerous to our communities,” said Schneiderman. “This settlement ensures that the state will not be forced to foot the bill to clean up hazardous oil spills that must be cleaned up to keep our families safe.”

CARY, N.C. — Nearly 10 years after exiting convenience-store operations, Cary Oil Co. took its biggest step back into retailing this week with the purchase of six c-stores from Mount Airy Oil Co.

The six stores are located throughout Surry and Stokes counties in North Carolina and bring the unit count for Cary Oil Co.’s Breeze Thru Markets to 14, as reported in a McLane Co./CSP Daily News Flash.

“We are delighted to be adding these stores to our growing company and welcome our new store managers and team members to the Breeze Thru family,” said Jim Bosworth, president of Breeze Thru Markets.

Breeze Thru also announced that it opened a new store in Raleigh, N.C., on April 8. This unit was a raze-and-rebuild of an older store and features a Krispy Krunchy Chicken quick-service restaurant.

Based in Cary, N.C., Breeze Thru Markets LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cary Oil Co. Inc.

Cary Oil once operated as many as 12 c-stores under the C-Mini Mart store name. In 2007, it converted those stores to consignment deals and leased the properties to independent retailers. Cary Oil, a petroleum supplier to retailers across 18 states, got back into retailing in 2013 with the development of the new Breeze Thru brand.

“We’ve steadily taken back stores from consignments operators as their leases expired,” Bosworth told CSP Daily News. “The acquisition yesterday was our first transaction of that kind under this new operation, and we are looking for more.”

Mount Airy Oil Co. Inc., Mount Airy, N.C., is a fuel wholesaler and operator of seven Shell Food Marts convenience stores, according to its website.