Dive Brief:
- Arko Corp., parent of convenience retailer GPM Investments, began building the first of its new food-focused c-stores last week, the company announced in its first-quarter earnings report.
- The store — a Fas Mart in Richmond, Virginia — will feature a new branded foodservice program called Fas Craves, Chairman, President and CEO Arie Kotler said during Arko’s earnings call on Thursday. Fas Craves will include hot and cold grab-and-go foods, baked goods, pizza, roller grill dogs and other fresh-prepared items, Kotler added.
- This will be the first of seven pilot stores under the new design in the Richmond area that Arko intends to finish by the end of 2025. The second location will begin construction in mid-May, Kotler said.
Dive Insight:
Arko revealed plans for its new food-focused c-stores last August and announced in November that it would begin building these locations sometime in 2025. That process has now begun, with Arko investing between $700,000 and $1.1 million into each location, Kotler said on Thursday.
Arko intends to finish all seven pilot stores under the new design by the end of the year, after which the company will evaluate how it wants to roll out the format across its broader network of over 1,300 company-operated c-stores, Kotler added.
“The idea is really to take the initial learnings and then basically apply them across a full region,” Kotler said. “Probably towards the end of 2025 we'll have better results… and assuming we enjoy the results and are happy with the results, we’re probably going to see an uptick in 2026.”
Kotler emphasized that the new food-focused convenience stores are fundamental to Arko’s long-term transformation plan, in which the company is spending less on acquisitions and more on organic growth, store-level investments and improvements to its loyalty platform.
That plan also includes Arko’s “dealierization” strategy, in which it’s converting company-operated c-stores to dealer sites as a means to reduce operating expenses and corporate general and administrative expenses. Kotler said that during Q1 2025, Arko converted 59 more stores under this program and expects this strategy to yield annualized operating income benefits of more than $20 million.
