Kwik Trip

Kwik Trip, Inc.

A typical Kwik Trip store
Trade name	Kwik Trip (in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan) Kwik Star (in Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota) (with a few exceptions)
Company type	Private
Industry	Retail
Founded	1965 (59 years ago) (1965) in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Founder	John Hansen, Don Zietlow
Headquarters	La Crosse, Wisconsin
Number of locations	878 (Jul. 2024)[1]
Area served	Illinois Iowa Michigan Minnesota North Dakota (planned)[2] South Dakota Wisconsin
Key people	Scott Zietlow (CEO) Tom Reinhart (COO) Jeff Wrobel (CFO) [3][4]
Products	Coffee Hoagies Prepared foods Gasoline Beverages Snacks Dairy products Salads
Services	Convenience store Gas station Fast food Car wash
Owner	Zietlow Family
Number of employees	36,457 (2024)[5]
Website	www.kwiktrip.com

Kwik Trip is a chain of convenience stores founded in 1965^[6] that has locations throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan under the name Kwik Trip, and in Illinois, Iowa, and South Dakota^[7] under the name Kwik Star (to avoid confusion with QuikTrip), although the Dixon, Illinois, location operates as Kwik Trip. The company also operates stores under the name Tobacco Outlet Plus, Tobacco Outlet Plus Grocery, Hearty Platter, Kwik Spirits, and Stop-N-Go. Kwik Trip, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in La Crosse, Wisconsin.^[8]

Unlike many other convenience store chains, Kwik Trip is a food service leader; the company is vertically integrated across most of its product lines. Until May 2024, it carried bagged milk and orange juice in pouches under the Nature's Touch brand via its in-house dairy.^[9] Kwik Trip also has an internal bakery operation that provides bread, doughnuts, and muffin products to its stores, along with a store-brand snack line called "Urge!". The company maintains branding partnerships with several Upper Midwest professional sports teams, including Minnesota's Twins, Vikings, and Wild and Wisconsin's Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, and Milwaukee Bucks (the last featured as part of its chocolate milk line).

All locations have small grocery sections selling basic fruits, bread, canned food, frozen food, sliced cheeses, and ice cream, along with traditional convenience store food such as bottled drinks and hot dogs. Notably, the chain has sold bananas, baking potatoes, and yellow onions for 39 cents per pound as a loss leader, along with fresh beef, hot dogs, bratwurst, and chicken. All stores also have heated and ready-to-eat food, and will cook food to order off a small menu. In 2018, the company acquired the south-central Wisconsin chain PDQ, which offered fresh fried chicken; the PDQ recipe and chicken was slowly rolled out to select stores before being available at most.^[10] The next year, Kwik Trip began to offer home delivery of hot food in select markets through a partnership with EatStreet.

Stores off major highway exits operate as full service truck stops, with dual-pump fuel islands. Many of the truck stop locations also have overnight parking, showers, and full-service Denny's restaurants. Automatic car washes are also available at many stores, with some restrictions on availability and hours due to local noise and environmental ordinances.

Kwik Trip was founded in 1965 by the Hansen and Zietlow families in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Over the next several years they added new locations surrounding Eau Claire.

The first La Crosse location opened in 1971, and in 1973, they built a distribution center and moved the headquarters to La Crosse. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Kwik Trip saw an influx in company growth; it expanded its corporate offices three times, the distribution center twice, and in 1986 it hit the 100-store mark.^[11]

In 1993, Kwik Trip opened its first location in Iowa under the name Kwik Star, and in 1997, its first retail car wash, which soon became a staple for the brand.^[11] In 1999, Kwik Trip merged its petroleum, grocery, fresh delivery, and fleet maintenance departments to form its own transportation subsidiary, Convenience Transportation, LLC.^[12]

In 2000, the Zietlow family became the sole owner of Kwik Trip, Inc. The early 2000s also saw Kwik Trip's expansion on its grab-and-go food offerings, including the introduction of Glazers Donuts, the Hot Spot hot food program, and fresh food such as salads, produce, and sandwiches. By 2016, the chain had over 500 stores, all privately owned.^[11] In 2017, it acquired the chain PDQ, and in 2020, it acquired Stop–N–Go.^[13] On December 8, 2020, the first Kwik Star location opened in Illinois, a former Stop-N-Go store in Rochelle.

In 2021, plans were announced for new stores in Brandon, South Dakota, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Harrisburg, South Dakota, under the Kwik Star name. These will be the company's first locations in South Dakota. Additional stores are expected to open in the Sioux Falls area.^[14]

On September 14, 2022, the company opened its first Michigan location in Ironwood,^[15] soon followed by one in Bessemer.

On January 1, 2023, Kwik Trip CEO Don Zietlow retired to take care of his wife. His son, former Mayo Clinic trauma surgeon Scott Zietlow, succeeded him as president and CEO.

On September 21, 2023, Kwik Trip opened its first Kwik Star location in South Dakota in Brandon, with five more openings expected by the end of 2023.^{[needs update]} There are also plans for more locations in northern Sioux Falls, another in Harrisburg, and one near the future interchange between Interstate 29 and 85th Street. Another Kwik Star is expected to open in Brookings.^[16][17]

A brand of in-store coffee that offers a variety of roasts ready to pour or to take home as pre-ground coffee bags. Kwik Trip also offers Karuba Gold, a line of specialty espresso drinks made-to-order by an automatic coffee machine.^[18]

A brand of in-store food including prepackaged salads, sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, pizza, and Hot Spot food items. The brand also sells fresh steak and ground beef, and relabels fresh bratwursts, hot dogs, and sausages produced by Bakalars Sausage Co. under this name.^[19]

A brand of baked goods produced by Kwik Trip's bakery, including its popular Glazers donuts. The offerings include muffins, donuts, bagels, cookies, and a variety of sliced breads and buns.^[20]

A brand of bottled water, juice, eggs, and dairy products. The dairy products are produced at Kwik Trip's milk processing plant and include butter, ice cream, and milk.^[21]

A snack brand encompassing potato chips, bagged candy, bagged salty snacks, and beef jerky.^[22]

Kwik Trip stores employ a mixture of full-time, overtime and part-time employees. In addition to a store leader, each store employs an assistant store leader and three to five guest service leaders. These employees are responsible for overseeing store operations when the store leader is out of the store. Additionally, each store has a food service leader and assistant food service leader responsible for overseeing the store's hot food program, ensuring that appropriate amounts of food are made and sold, and ensuring that the program continues to grow according to company expectations. District leaders supervise multiple stores in a given region, and zone leaders supervise multiple districts.^{[citation needed]}

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  Kwik Trip headquarters
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  Kwik Trip Onalaska Support Center
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  Kwik Trip store in West Salem, Wisconsin

In 2011, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel named Kwik Trip the number one large workplace (over 500 employees) for workers in Southeastern Wisconsin. Kwik Trip beat out Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC) for the first spot.

In 2018, Convenience Store Decisions honored Kwik Trip as the 2018 Convenience Store Chain of the Year.^[23]

• Official website
• American Marketing Association Collegiate Case Competition featuring Kwik Trip

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kwik Trip.