How Casey’s General Store’s ‘Go Where Others Won’t’ Strategy Made it a Pizza Giant, According to …

In a recent LinkedIn post, Noemi Kis✨ highlights a compelling business strategy exemplified by Casey’s General Store, a convenience store chain that has become America’s fifth-largest pizza provider. Kis✨ breaks down how this success stems from a deliberate choice to serve markets overlooked by major competitors.

The Power of Serving Underserved Markets

Noemi Kis✨ points out that Casey’s strategy is rooted in identifying and capitalizing on gaps in the market, particularly in smaller communities. The company didn’t try to reinvent itself; instead, it leveraged existing customer traffic at its gas stations to introduce pizza.

“A gas station is America’s 5th-biggest pizza chain. By going where Domino’s wouldn’t.”

This approach, as Kis✨ details, involved adding pizza to their offerings without a major rebranding effort, appealing directly to the customers already frequenting their stores for fuel and convenience items. The key was adding value without alienating the existing customer base.

Targeting Small Towns and Avoiding Competition

A significant part of Casey’s success, according to Kis✨’s analysis, was its focus on locations that larger chains often ignore. These are typically smaller towns with limited or no existing national pizza competition.

Strategic Expansion

Kis✨ elaborates on this strategic decision:

“The same model was repeated across nearly 3,000 stores. Bank of America Research now ranks Casey’s as the 5th-largest pizza chain in the country by sales.”

This repetition across a vast network of stores, each strategically placed in a low-competition, small-town environment, allowed Casey’s to aggregate significant sales volume. As Noemi Kis✨ notes, the collective market potential of these small towns proved substantial, even if no single town appeared to be a massive market on its own.

A Repeatable Model for Growth

Noemi Kis✨ distills the Casey’s model into a straightforward, repeatable strategy: identify existing traffic, add a desirable product that is not readily available locally, and scale the operation. This methodical approach allowed Casey’s to build a formidable presence in the pizza market.

“Casey’s found existing traffic, added something people couldn’t easily get nearby, and repeated it until the numbers added up.”

The insights shared by Noemi Kis✨ offer a valuable lesson for businesses looking for growth opportunities. By focusing on underserved demographics and locations, and by providing a complementary service that meets existing demand, companies can achieve significant market share, even without competing head-on with established giants in prime locations.