The Ankeny Iowa-based Casey’s convenience store chain reports its gross profit for the third quarter was up more than 13 percent thanks to increased sales of its prepared food. Speaking on a conference call, Casey’s chief financial officer Bill Walljasper says the sale of their food products increased as they moved more stores to 24-hour operations and completed major remodels on others.
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The company has also continued to increase the number of stores that offer pizza delivery and that has helped sales.
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The company has completed 11 replacement stores and 60 major remodels through the third quarter, and plans to add pizza delivery to 45 more stores and complete 40 major remodels in the fourth quarter. Walljasper says the company also benefited from the drop in gas prices as they sold one-point-six more gallons of gas, and made a profit of 18-point-one cents on each gallon. That is above the company’s goal of making around 16 cents on each gallon of gas sold.
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The quarterly report shows earnings for each share dropped four cents for the third quarter of this year compared to last year to 97 cents.