Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores (U.S. NAICS 457110): An Investor's Primer

1. Overview

Almost every gas station you pass is really two businesses under one roof: a low-margin fuel operation out front and a higher-margin retail store behind the register. NAICS code 457110 — "Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores" — covers exactly that combined format: sites that pump motor fuel and sell packaged food, drinks, tobacco, snacks, and increasingly fresh prepared meals. (NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the standard federal scheme for grouping businesses.)

Why this industry matters: it is a large, cash-generative, recession-resilient slice of American retail. People buy gas and coffee in good times and bad, transactions are small and frequent, and the best operators earn most of their profit not on fuel but on what customers grab inside. It is also one of the most fragmented consumer industries left in the U.S. — roughly six in ten stores are single-store "mom-and-pop" operators [3] — which makes it a live, multi-decade consolidation story.

The central question is not simply whether gasoline demand rises. It is whether an operator can turn location traffic into durable inside-store gross profit while managing labor, environmental liability, and a slow structural decline in fuel intensity.

• Public-market investors can own a handful of pure-play chains (Casey's, Murphy USA), the Canadian parent of Circle K, the Japanese parent of 7-Eleven, the fuel-distribution partnerships that supply thousands of branded sites (Sunoco, Global Partners, CrossAmerica), and a net-lease landlord that owns the underlying real estate (Getty Realty). See Section 4.
• Private-market investors meet this industry constantly: it is a favorite of private-equity roll-ups, family- and employee-owned regional champions (Wawa, Sheetz, QuikTrip, Kwik Trip, Buc-ee's), single-site owner-operators, and net-lease real-estate buyers who like a long lease backed by a hard-to-move gas pump.

Throughout, reported facts are distinguished from forward-looking judgment in the wording, and every figure carries a citation.

2. What it is, and how it's structured

Scope. NAICS 457110 is the retail format that combines fuel dispensing with a convenience store on the same site. It spans everything from a two-pump corner store to a 24-pump highway travel plaza with a kitchen. Revenue comes from two streams: fuel gallons and in-store merchandise/foodservice.

A single 457110 business can be an independent (branded or unbranded) station, a company-operated chain store, a dealer or franchisee flying an oil or c-store brand, a fuel wholesaler supplying independently run sites, or a property owner leasing the site to an operator. Who owns the land and tanks — versus who holds a supply-and-branding agreement — determines who controls pricing, inventory, maintenance, marketing, and capital spending.

What it excludes (naming the neighbors clarifies the boundary):

• 457120 — Other Gasoline Stations: fuel-only sites, truck stops, and marine/aviation fueling with no meaningful convenience store.
• 445131 — Convenience Retailers: convenience stores that sell no fuel (a downtown bodega, or a c-store with no pumps). Roughly 29,000 U.S. c-stores sell no fuel at all [1][4].
• 457210 — Fuel Dealers: home heating oil, propane, and bulk fuel delivery — no retail forecourt.
• Restaurants (722xxx): even a c-store with a serious kitchen stays in retail; a stand-alone quick-service restaurant does not.

Because federal statistics split "fuel + store," "fuel only," and "store only" across three different codes, no single NAICS number captures all of American gas-and-convenience retail — a point that matters when you compare government data to industry-trade totals (Section 3).

Ownership mix. The industry is a barbell:

• A long tail of small operators. About 60% of stores are single-site operators, and roughly 63% belong to companies with 10 or fewer stores [3]. Many are franchisees or branded independents who fly a major oil brand (Shell, ExxonMobil, BP) on the canopy but own the store themselves and buy fuel from a distributor.
• A consolidating head. A few large chains — 7-Eleven, Circle K, Casey's — plus fast-growing regional powerhouses are steadily buying up that tail. The top four firms hold about 23% of industry receipts and the top 50 about half [6].

Fuel branding and store ownership are usually separate: an "ExxonMobil" station is typically owned by an independent operator or a distributor, not by ExxonMobil itself. The oil majors have largely exited direct retail store ownership.

3. How big it is

Our federal figures (U.S. Census Bureau and SBA). These are shown by vintage on purpose — County Business Patterns (CBP) is a 2023 employer census; receipts and concentration come from the 2022 Economic Census. The two are not one dataset and should not be combined into a single-year growth calculation.

Two reads jump out. First, this is a big, low-wage, part-time-heavy employer: $23.7 billion of payroll across 848,000 workers is roughly $28,000 per employee [5] — a reminder that store labor is thin and turnover-prone. Second, the industry is statistically unconcentrated at the national level: a CR4 of 23.4% (the combined revenue share of the four largest firms; CR8/CR20/CR50 apply the same idea to the eight/twenty/fifty largest) and an HHI of 196 sit far below the 1,500 mark antitrust regulators treat as even "moderately concentrated" [6]. (HHI sums the squared market shares of all firms; a low number means no one dominates.) Individual local markets can be far more concentrated than the national picture suggests.

The undercount / scope caveats. The $533.8 billion federal receipts figure is a clean but narrow measure, for two reasons.

1. Employer-only, code-specific coverage. CBP and the Economic Census cover employer businesses classified specifically to 457110. They exclude self-employed people, businesses with no employees, and firms without an Employer Identification Number [38]. Census Nonemployer Statistics would capture the no-employee tail, but our file has no 457110-specific nonemployer count — so the likely undercount here is tiny operators, and no all-operator market size is asserted. The figure also does not fold in the fuel-only (457120) or no-fuel (445131) c-stores that sit in separate codes.

2. A broader trade-group channel measure exists — and measures something different. The trade association NACS (National Association of Convenience Stores) counts the whole convenience channel: 151,975 U.S. convenience stores in 2025, of which 122,620 sell fuel [1][4], generating $817.5 billion in total sales — about $476.3 billion of fuel plus $341.2 billion of in-store merchandise and foodservice [1][2][4]. Convenience stores sell roughly 80% of the fuel purchased in the U.S. [8]. So when you see "$800-billion-plus industry," that is the whole channel on a trade basis; the federal $533.8 billion is the narrower, cleaner 457110 employer slice. Both are correct — they simply count different universes.

One nuance for owners of the profit, not just the sales: the two largest chains are foreign-owned — 7-Eleven (Japan) and Circle K (Canada) — so a meaningful share of the industry's earnings accrues to overseas parents.

4. The investable universe

Unusually for a huge consumer industry, the pure-play public options are few, and the biggest operators are either foreign-listed or privately held. Here is the practical map. (Reporting caveat: most of these companies fold retail, wholesale, real estate, fuel distribution, and international lines into one set of financials, so isolating clean 457110 exposure takes work.)

Publicly traded operators and enablers:

Notes for public investors: Couche-Tard and Seven & i give you the two global giants but require a Canadian or Japanese equity (or its U.S. over-the-counter shares/ADR). Sunoco, Global Partners, and CrossAmerica are MLPs (master limited partnerships) — they pay high distributions but issue a K-1 tax form, which some investors dislike. Getty Realty is the "own the dirt, skip the pump economics" play: you collect long-dated net-lease rent instead of fuel margin. There is currently no small, simple, U.S.-listed pure c-store index fund; exposure is stock-by-stock. Indirectly, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/BRK.B) owns Pilot (677 travel centers plus 77 fuel-only sites in the U.S. and Canada in its 2024 report [35]), and the oil majors — ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), Shell (SHEL), BP (BP), Phillips 66 (PSX), Marathon Petroleum (MPC) — carry branded-supply exposure to franchised/dealer forecourts they don't directly operate [8].

Major private and other owners (not directly investable, but they define the competitive field):

• 7-Eleven (Seven & i, Japan) — largest U.S. footprint.
• QuikTrip — ~1,200 stores, private, fast-growing [16].
• Wawa — ~1,260 stores, employee-owned (ESOP); cult foodservice following [17].
• Sheetz — ~700 stores, family-owned; foodservice-led.
• Kwik Trip — ~900+ stores, private, Upper Midwest, own commissary/dairy and heavy private label.
• RaceTrac / RaceWay — approaching ~600 large-format company stores plus franchised sites [18].
• Love's Travel Stops and Pilot Flying J — the highway travel-center duopoly (Pilot is majority-owned by Berkshire Hathaway) [18][35].
• Buc-ee's — ~56 destination mega-stores, private [18].
• EG America / Cumberland Farms (EG Group, U.K.) and Yesway / Allsup's (Brookwood) — both PE-backed and on an IPO track (see Section 10) [25][26].
• Maverik / Kum & Go (FJ Management) — large private Western operator.

Private-market routes: single-site and small-portfolio deals trade constantly through business brokers; PE firms run buy-and-build platforms; and net-lease real estate (buying the property and leasing it to an operator on a 10–20-year absolute-net lease) is a well-trodden path for individual and institutional real-estate investors alike — Getty Realty is simply the securitized version of that trade.

5. How the money works

Two economic engines, and a margin inversion: fuel is most of the revenue but little of the profit; the store is the reverse.

Fuel — high volume, thin and volatile margin. A pump price is built from four components: crude oil, refining costs and margins, distribution-and-marketing costs and margins, and taxes [39]. The retailer earns only the last slice — a spread of cents per gallon (CPG) between what it pays at the rack and what it charges at the pump. In 2025 that retail fuel margin ran above 40 CPG industry-wide — Casey's reported ~41.6 CPG, ARKO ~44.9 CPG, and Couche-Tard ~47 CPG in the U.S. [21]. Counter-intuitively, fuel margins tend to widen when wholesale prices fall (pump prices are "sticky" on the way down) and compress when prices spike. Fuel is a traffic driver and a working-capital-heavy commodity business; it is not where the equity value sits.

The store — the profit engine. In-store gross margins run far higher — merchandise around 33% [21] — with foodservice (prepared food, coffee, fountain drinks) the crown jewel: it is roughly 28.5% of in-store sales but ~38.9% of in-store gross profit [22]. This is why Wawa, Sheetz, Casey's, and QuikTrip pour capital into kitchens — a made-to-order sandwich earns multiples of what a gallon of gas earns. Other categories: packaged beverages, snacks, tobacco/nicotine (huge and high-frequency but structurally declining), plus car washes, lottery, financial services, and supplier incentives.

Unit-economics reality. Store operating costs — labor, occupancy, card fees, utilities, maintenance, shrink, food waste, insurance, environmental compliance — are heavy enough that on some 2025 industry benchmarks the average in-store basket ran slightly negative once all costs were absorbed, meaning fuel margin is what carried many stores to profitability [21]. A site can post large fuel sales and still generate weak cash flow. The winning operators break this trap by driving so much high-margin foodservice and merchandise volume that the store stands on its own and fuel becomes pure upside.

The metrics owners and investors actually watch:

• Same-store (same-site) sales growth, split between fuel gallons and inside sales — the retail health check.
• Fuel margin (CPG) and fuel gallon volume per store — the commodity engine.
• Inside/merchandise gross margin % and foodservice mix — the profit engine.
• Store count and new-build/remodel pace, plus M&A — the growth lever.
• EBITDA per store, free-cash-flow yield, and return on invested capital — how good the format really is. (EBITDA = earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, a proxy for store-level cash generation.)
• For the MLPs/REIT: distribution/dividend coverage, gallons distributed, occupancy, and lease term.

Because fuel margin can be unusually high or low in any given quarter, normalize for it before judging a retailer's earnings quality.

6. What drives demand

• Miles driven (vehicle-miles traveled, VMT) and vehicle fuel efficiency. More driving lifts gallons; more-efficient vehicles cut gallons per mile. The long-run direction is down: the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) put motor-gasoline consumption at 8.9 million barrels/day in 2025 — down 1% from 2024 and 4% from 2019 — and forecasts further declines in 2026–2027 as efficiency improves and VMT growth slows [28].
• Fuel prices. Lower pump prices leave consumers more discretionary cash to spend inside — good for the high-margin store — even as they shrink fuel-dollar revenue. In 2025, average gas fell from $3.30 to $3.11 a gallon [1].
• Foodservice and "food-away-from-home" habits. C-stores are winning share from fast food with quick, cheap prepared meals; this is the industry's single biggest growth vector.
• Convenience and location. Immediacy, not price, is the product; commuter routes, highways, tourism corridors, and dense suburbs drive traffic. Inflation can lift nominal sales while real unit demand softens — separate price from transactions.
• Tobacco/nicotine trends. A large, high-frequency, but structurally declining category — a slow headwind operators offset with vapor, nicotine pouches, and foodservice.
• Electrification. EV adoption is a headwind to fuel but a potential new dwell-time/foodservice opportunity for well-located sites with reliable chargers and clean stores (see Sections 7, 9, 10).

7. Regulation

This is a heavily regulated retail format because it dispenses hazardous fuel and sells age-restricted products.

• Underground storage tanks (USTs). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets federal standards for the buried tanks that hold motor fuel — corrosion protection, release/leak detection, spill and overfill prevention, closure procedures, recordkeeping, and financial-responsibility (cleanup) obligations [20]. Tank compliance and remediation are a real capital and liability item — leaks can impair financing or resale — and a barrier to casual entry.
• Fuel composition and renewable fuels. The federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires biofuel (ethanol, biodiesel) to be blended into the fuel supply, tracked via RINs (Renewable Identification Numbers) as compliance credits. EPA proposed blending obligations of ~24.0 billion RINs for 2026 and ~24.5 billion for 2027, with corn ethanol held near 15 billion gallons [19]. Selling E15 (gasoline with 15% ethanol) or E85 may require compatible equipment, certification, labeling, and state approvals.
• Franchise and dealer relationships. The Petroleum Marketing Practices Act (PMPA) governs certain motor-fuel franchise terminations, renewals, and related protections between suppliers and branded dealers [31].
• Age-restricted products. Tobacco, vapor, and (where sold) alcohol require licenses and strict age verification; the federal minimum tobacco age is 21, and state/local flavored-tobacco and vapor bans are proliferating.
• Charging infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program supports a national charging network [30] — an opportunity, but one that adds equipment, uptime, interoperability, and maintenance obligations.
• Other rules. EMV chip-card requirements at the pump, card-interchange economics, air/vapor-recovery rules, weights-and-measures (pump calibration), SNAP eligibility for qualifying food items, food safety, and local zoning/permitting all apply.

The judgment call for investors: regulation raises the cost of running a compliant site, which quietly favors scaled operators and pressures marginal single-store owners — a structural tailwind for consolidation.

8. Competitive dynamics & consolidation

The through-line is fragmentation slowly giving way to scale. Large chains enjoy lower fuel-buying costs, private-label and foodservice programs a single store cannot match, better sites, data/loyalty platforms, and cheaper capital — so they out-earn and then buy the independents. Consolidation runs in three channels: chains buying chains, chains buying independents, and PE platforms rolling up regions.

The signal event was the collapse of the biggest deal ever attempted here: in July 2025 Canada's Couche-Tard withdrew its ~$47 billion bid for Seven & i Holdings, the parent of 7-Eleven, after accusing the board of stonewalling — a combination that would have created the world's largest convenience retailer [9]. Its failure leaves the global top two (7-Eleven and Circle K) separate and keeps the U.S. field open for the American growth chains.

Smaller deals show both the appetite for regional scale and the local nature of antitrust review. Casey's agreed to buy 198 CEFCO stores in 2024 [33]; Couche-Tard's 2025 GetGo acquisition (~270 sites) cleared the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) only after required divestitures to address local overlap [32][37]. Because competition is fundamentally local — traffic flow, ingress/egress, price visibility, cleanliness, food quality, hours, loyalty — deals routinely trigger site-level remedies.

Meanwhile the domestic winners compete less on gas price than on foodservice and experience. Kwik Trip overtook Wawa atop the 2025 American Customer Satisfaction Index for the channel, with Sheetz, QuikTrip, and Buc-ee's close behind — a scoreboard that increasingly tracks kitchen quality, not pump price. Casey's, Murphy USA, QuikTrip, Wawa, Love's, and Buc-ee's are all in active new-store build-outs. The threat from outside the channel is real too: Costco, Walmart (Murphy's partner-turned-rival), and grocery fuel programs undercut on gas price and pull gallons away.

The likely pattern: continued consolidation of attractive sites and regional platforms, while well-run independents stay relevant in markets where location, family labor, or local relationships offset a purchasing disadvantage.

9. Risks

• The EV transition (long-term structural). Widespread battery-electric adoption is the existential question for the fuel half of the business. It is real but gradual — the International Energy Agency (IEA) put electric cars at just under 10% of U.S. car sales in 2025, with wide regional variation [29] — but the direction is one-way, and operators that fail to migrate profit into the store and into charging face secular decline.
• Fuel-margin and commodity volatility. Earnings swing with the CPG spread and crude/wholesale prices; a sharp price spike can crush fuel margin and inventory economics in a quarter.
• Secular fuel-volume pressure. Efficiency gains and EVs shrink gasoline demand over time [28].
• Tobacco secular decline. A large, profitable, high-traffic category shrinking every year.
• Thin store profitability and labor. Low per-transaction margins, wage inflation, turnover, shrink, food waste, and late-night security leave little cushion; minimum-wage increases hit directly.
• Environmental liability. Tank leaks, soil contamination, remediation, and insurance gaps can destroy acquisition economics.
• Capital intensity. Pumps, tanks, canopies, foodservice equipment, chargers, technology, and remodels demand continuing investment.
• Contract risk. Branded-fuel agreements, leases, franchise terms, and supplier concentration can restrict pricing and operating flexibility.
• Leverage and integration. Acquisitions add debt, execution risk, and antitrust remedies — especially where locations overlap locally.
• Reporting opacity. Public issuers blend retail, wholesale, real estate, fuel distribution, and international lines, making clean 457110 exposure hard to isolate.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public routes. Start with business exposure, not the ticker:

• Direct operators: Casey's (CASY) and Murphy USA (MUSA) are the cleanest U.S. pure plays; ARKO (ARKO) is a smaller, more leveraged operator-plus-wholesaler.
• Global/diversified c-store owners: Couche-Tard (ATD/ANCTF, Circle K) or Seven & i (SVNDY, 7-Eleven).
• Fuel distribution + real estate: Sunoco (SUN), Global Partners (GLP), and CrossAmerica (CAPL) are MLPs paying high distributions on the wholesale/logistics/real-estate layer (mind the K-1).
• Net-lease real estate: Getty Realty (GTY) offers long-dated rent and a dividend (~$1.90/share against ~$2.43 AFFO in 2025 [13]) with no direct fuel-margin exposure. (AFFO = adjusted funds from operations, the REIT cash-earnings measure.)
• Indirect: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) carries the Pilot travel-center stake [35]; the oil majors carry branded-supply exposure.

For operators, track fuel gallons per store, CPG margin, same-store sales, inside gross margin, foodservice mix, transactions, labor, shrink, maintenance capex, store growth, and environmental reserves. For valuation, use enterprise value (EV) to EBITDA, free-cash-flow yield, leverage, and distribution/dividend coverage — after normalizing for an unusually high or low fuel-margin year.

Private routes. Underwrite the store, the site, and the contract separately. Buy a single site or small portfolio; back a PE roll-up; or purchase the net-lease real estate under an operating store for long, bond-like rent. Essential diligence: verified fuel gallons/margin and inside sales/gross profit by category; inventory and shrink reconciliation; labor, owner comp, occupancy, card fees, insurance; lease, title, access rights, and competing sites; tank age, leak-detection records, environmental reports, and state cleanup-fund status; fuel/food/tobacco/alcohol/lottery licenses; branded-fuel and franchise agreements; and required remodel/charging/compliance capital. The SBA size standard of $36.5 million in receipts [7] flags small-business eligibility — it is not a valuation benchmark. The fragmented tail (60% single-store) is the raw material for all three approaches.

Near-term drivers (forward-looking).

• An IPO pipeline is reopening. PE-backed operators Yesway/Allsup's and Cumberland Farms/EG America have filed to go public, and ARKO is spinning out its wholesale arm (Arko Petroleum, APC) — if these price, they widen the thin public menu and put a fresh market read on the format [25][26][12].
• Foodservice keeps taking share from fast food, lifting the highest-margin part of the store — the clearest growth engine into 2026 [2][22].
• Consolidation continues. With the mega-merger off the table, expect the American growth chains and PE platforms to keep absorbing independents; scale advantages in buying, foodservice, and loyalty compound.
• EV/charging becomes a differentiator. Adoption is real but gradual; leading chains are adding charging (Casey's reported ~282 chargers at 64 stores by spring 2026) while treating the store — not the pump — as the destination [23][24][30].

Bottom line (judgment). The fuel half of this industry faces a slow, decades-long structural decline as vehicles electrify, but the store half — foodservice-led, consolidating, and defended by real estate and compliance barriers — is where durable value sits. Expect a bifurcated outcome: gas-only and poorly located sites lose relevance, while operators with dense locations, strong prepared food, loyalty data, private label, disciplined pricing, and manageable environmental exposure keep taking share. The opportunity is less "bet on gasoline" and more "bet on the operators and landlords converting a fragmented, cash-generative retail format into scaled, food-driven businesses" — and, on the private side, on the individual sites and regional platforms a larger chain can still improve.

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Sources

1. NACS (National Association of Convenience Stores), "U.S. Convenience In-Store Sales Top $340 Billion," 2026 (151,975 stores; 122,620 sell fuel; in-store $341.2B; gas $3.30→$3.11). https://www.convenience.org/stay-current/news/2026/april/15/u-s-convenience-in-store-sales-top-$340-billion
2. CSP Daily News, "C-store foodservice, merchandise sales surpass $340B in 2025," 2026. https://www.cspdailynews.com/company-news/c-store-foodservice-merchandise-sales-surpass-340b-2025
3. Convenience Store News, "U.S. Convenience Store Industry Count Dominated by Small Operators," 2025 (≈60% single-store; ≈63% ≤10 stores). https://csnews.com/us-convenience-store-industry-count-dominated-small-operators
4. C-Store Dive, "3 Big Numbers: How did c-stores fare in 2025?," 2026 (total sales $817.5B; fuel $476.3B). https://www.cstoredive.com/news/3-big-numbers-nacs-c-store-industry-highlights/817733/
5. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 457110 (establishments 96,002; employees 848,306; annual payroll $23.7B; Q1 payroll $5.6B). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
6. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration by Largest Firms, NAICS 457110 (firms 56,502; receipts $533.8B; CR4 23.4%, CR8 33.2%, CR20 43.4%, CR50 50.2%; HHI 196.1). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
7. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Size Standards, 2023 (NAICS 457110 = $36.5M receipts). https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
8. NACS, "Who Sells America's Fuel" (c-stores ≈80% of U.S. fuel; majors' stations are franchised/supplied), 2025. https://www.convenience.org/topics/fuels-and-energy/who-sells-americas-fuel
9. CNBC, "Shares in Japan's Seven & i plunge after Couche-Tard withdraws $47 billion takeover bid," July 17, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/17/trading-in-japans-seven-i-halted-after-couche-tard-withdraws-47-billion-bid-to-acquire-the-retailer.html
10. Statista, "Casey's revenue in the U.S. 2025" (~$15.9B, FY ended Apr 30, 2025); Casey's Investor Relations profile (~2,900 stores, ~19 states). https://www.statista.com/statistics/1229218/revenue-caseys-general-stores-united-states/; https://investor.caseys.com/
11. Macrotrends, "Murphy USA Revenue 2012-2025" ($20.2B, 2024); Murphy USA Investor Relations (>1,700 sites, 27 states). https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MUSA/murphy-usa/revenue; https://ir.corporate.murphyusa.com/
12. ARKO Corp., "Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results" (1,118 retail stores; 2,099 dealers); "Arko Petroleum goes public on Nasdaq under 'APC'," 2026. https://www.arkocorp.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/191/arko-corp-reports-third-quarter-2025-results
13. Getty Realty Corp. (NYSE: GTY), 2025 results and Annual Report (1,174 properties; 99.8% occupancy; AFFO $2.43/share; dividend $1.90/share). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1052752/000114036126009231/ny20063445x3_ars.pdf
14. Sunoco LP (NYSE: SUN), company profile and 2024 Form 10-K (>15 billion gallons distributed to ~7,400 branded sites and independent dealers). https://www.sunocolp.com/; https://www.sunocolp.com/press-release/item/sunoco-lp-files-2024-annual-report-on-form-10-k-2025
15. Global Partners LP (NYSE: GLP), Form 10-K FY2025 (1,524 stations incl. 290 company-operated c-stores; 54 terminals). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1323468/000110465926021381/glp-20251231x10k.htm
16. CSP Daily News, "QuikTrip hits 1,200 stores," 2026. https://www.cspdailynews.com/company-news/quiktrip-hits-1200-stores
17. Wikipedia / company data, "Wawa (company)" (~1,260 stores; ESOP), 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wawa_(company)
18. Mass Market Retailers, "Love's, Buc-ee's, Poppy Market, RaceTrac and Stewart's expand nationwide," 2025; CSP Daily News Top 202 (Love's, RaceTrac, Buc-ee's, Pilot). https://massmarketretailers.com/loves-buc-ees-poppy-market-racetrac-and-stewarts-expand-nationwide/
19. U.S. EPA / Federal Register, "Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program: Standards for 2026 and 2027," June 17, 2025 (~24.0B RINs 2026; ~24.5B 2027; corn ethanol ~15B gal). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/06/17/2025-11128/renewable-fuel-standard-rfs-program-standards-for-2026-and-2027-partial-waiver-of-2025-cellulosic
20. U.S. EPA, "Underground Storage Tanks" program (installation, release detection, spill/overfill protection, financial responsibility). https://www.epa.gov/ust
21. Paytronix, "How Much Do Convenience Stores Make: 2025 Stats" (fuel margins >40 CPG; Casey's 41.6, ARKO 44.9, Couche-Tard 47; merchandise ~33%; near break-even/slightly-negative average basket). https://www.paytronix.com/blog/how-much-do-convenience-stores-make
22. NACS Magazine, "5 Key Metrics Defining the Convenience Industry's Health," 2026 (foodservice ~28.5% of in-store sales, ~38.9% of in-store gross profit; 2024 comparably ~27.7%/38.6%). https://www.nacsmagazine.com/issues/june-2026/5-key-metrics-defining-the-convenience-industrys-health
23. Casey's General Stores, Form 10-K FY2026 (EV charging: ~282 chargers at 64 stores). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000726958/000072695826000046/casy-20260430.htm
24. SEPA (Smart Electric Power Alliance), "Why Aren't More Convenience Stores Installing Electric Vehicle Chargers?," 2025. https://sepapower.org/knowledge/arent-convenience-stores-installing-electric-vehicle-chargers/
25. Cumberland Farms Ltd (EG America), Form F-1, 2026 (IPO filing; U.S. gasoline/EV trends). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0002123232/000119312526293820/d113224df1.htm
26. Yesway, Inc. (Allsup's), Form DRS/A, 2025–2026 (IPO registration). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1859836/000110465926012540/filename1.htm
27. cStore Thrive, "Convenience Store Chains with the Highest Market Share in 2025" (7-Eleven, Circle K ~5,851 U.S., Casey's ~2,899 U.S. stores); NACS Top 100 Convenience Retailers of 2025. https://www.cstorethrive.com/convenience-store-chains-with-the-highest-market-share-in-2025-whos-leading-the-pack/
28. U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Today in Energy" — U.S. motor-gasoline consumption 8.9M bbl/day in 2025 (−1% vs 2024, −4% vs 2019; forecast further declines). https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67426
29. International Energy Agency, "Global EV Outlook 2026: Trends in Electric Cars" (electric cars ≈10% of U.S. car sales, 2025). https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2026/trends-in-electric-cars
30. U.S. Department of Energy, "National Electric Vehicle Charging Network" (NEVI). https://www.energy.gov/topics/national-ev-charging-network
31. Federal Trade Commission, "Petroleum Marketing Practices Act" (PMPA). https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/statutes/petroleum-marketing-practices-act
32. Federal Trade Commission, "FTC Takes Action to Prevent Anticompetitive Effects of Retail Gas Station Deal," 2025 (GetGo/Couche-Tard divestitures). https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/06/ftc-takes-action-to-prevent-anticompetitive-effects-of-retail-gas-station-deal
33. Casey's General Stores, "Casey's Announces Agreement to Acquire 198 CEFCO Convenience Stores," 2024. https://investor.caseys.com/news-releases/news-release-details/caseys-announces-agreement-acquire-198-cefco-convenience-stores
34. Seven & i Holdings, "Overseas Convenience Store Operations: 7-Eleven, Inc.," FY2025 (12,712 stores; 8,162 with fuel). https://www.7andi.com/en/ir/library/co_financial/2026/convenience_store_overseas.html
35. Berkshire Hathaway, 2024 Annual Report / Form 10-K (Pilot: 677 travel centers + 77 fuel-only retail locations, U.S. and Canada). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095017025025210/brka-20241231.htm
36. CrossAmerica Partners LP (NYSE: CAPL), Form 10-K FY2025 (fuel wholesale, c-store operations, fuel-retail real estate). https://caplp.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/crossamerica-partners-files-2025-annual-report-form-10-k
37. Alimentation Couche-Tard, "Receives FTC Clearance to Complete Acquisition of GetGo Café + Market," 2025 (~270 locations post-remedies). https://corporate.couche-tard.com/2025-06-26-COUCHE-TARD-RECEIVES-FTC-CLEARANCE-TO-COMPLETE-ACQUISITION-OF-GETGO-CAFE-MARKET
38. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns Methodology" (excludes self-employed, no-employee businesses, firms without an EIN); "Nonemployer Statistics." https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
39. U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Factors Affecting Gasoline Prices" (crude, refining, distribution/marketing, taxes). https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/factors-affecting-gasoline-prices.php