Drive through Iowa, Missouri or Illinois, and you’ll pass a Casey’s roughly every few exits. Midwesterners have come to know the red-roofed convenience store and gas station where people buy diesel, a bag of ice, a lottery ticket and, increasingly, a hot pizza. Maybe it’s one of their distinctive creations, like the taco pizza or the breakfast pizza.
Casey’s General Stores is closing in on 3,000 locations, nearly half of which sit in towns of 5,000 people or fewer and about two-thirds in towns under 20,000. The Fortune 500 company’s stock price is surging as America wakes up to the stealth pizza empire sitting under its nose: it’s up more than 50% in the past 12 months for a market capitalization of $28 billion.
