Kwik Trip is still family-owned and still growing (2024)

STEVE CAHALAN | La Crosse Tribune

The Don Zietlow family plans to continue growing its LaCrosse-based Kwik Trip convenience store chain in a big way.

The company will continue to build about 20 stores a year. Andwith a new commissary to make food items, new ice plant and a newwater plant already in place, it plans to build a new ice cream andyogurt plant and expand its bakery in the next few years.Eventually, Kwik Trip also intends to start making its own plasticbottles.

Kwik Trip already has 383 stores, all in Wisconsin, Minnesotaand Iowa.

"I think you have to grow or you die," said Zietlow, thecompany's president and CEO. "I've taken a lot of risks," heacknowledged in a rare interview in his office at

Kwik Trip's support center in the La Crosse Industrial Park.

"The market is moving; the market always changes," he said.

"I think the Wal-Marts of the world changed the retailbusiness," Zietlow said. "And they really put a lot of grocerystores out of business. And when that happened, it made a place forus to sell our milk, bread, bananas, oranges and apples, and fillin the gap."

Founded in 1965, the Kwik Trip chain had been jointly owned bythe Zietlow and John Hansen families since 1972. The Hansens soldtheir interest to the Zietlow family in 2000.

Don and LaVonne Zietlow have three children: Steve Zietlow,Scott Zietlow and Vicky Kunz, each of whom are on the companyboard. They also have 14 grandchildren.

Test Store:

"I thought I'd probably retire by now," said Don Zietlow, 73. "Ithink the children think there's probably still some rubber on thetires. So as long as they think I'm an asset and can make acontribution, I'll be around."

The next CEO will be chosen by the company board, and probablyeither will be a Zietlow family member or someone else within thecompany because of its unique culture, he said.

There's no chance the company will go public with a stockoffering, said Steve Zietlow, the company's director of petroleumoperations, who also participated in the Tribune interview with hisfather.

Commissary:

"It will always be family owned," Steve Zietlow said of KwikTrip, which has annual sales of about $3 billion.

"Being family owned, you have a certain amount of control ofyour own destiny. We'll do what we feel is necessary for thebusiness. My father is kind of a risk-taker and kind of aggressive"in growing the business, Steve Zietlow said. "That's something youcan do with a private company. With a public company, you might nothave that leisure."

Being privately owned, Steve Zietlow said, the company can keepprograms in place in which it shares 40 percent of its pre-taxprofits with employees (the company calls them "co-workers") andallows full-time employees with at least five years of service tobecome equity owners of the company's real estate property. Thoseprograms are one reason why Kwik Trip's employee turnover rate isby far the lowest in the industry, he said.

Keeping Kwik Trip privately owned is good for its co-workers,Steve Zietlow said.

Though Don Zietlow expects to continue building about 20 storesa year, he doesn't expect to add locations in the La Crosse area,"just replacements and upgrades," he said. For example, the companywill replace its Cass Street location with a much larger store,plus a car wash, in 2009.

But the company has new-store opportunities elsewhere in thethree-state area and might eventually expand to one more state.

"We could go into northern Illinois," Steve Zietlow said. "Theone constraint we have is because we ship every day to every store… how far you can get a truck out?" The company has its own fleetof trucks.

Bakery:

Kwik Trip's employees have played a major role in the company'sgrowth, Don Zietlow said.

"Our people are our greatest asset," he said. "They have to takecare of the customer. And we have to take care of our people."

Kwik Trip serves about 4 million customers a week, Don Zietlowsaid. They will continue to come in "if we give them value andclean stores and clean bathrooms," he said. "We have to becompetitive" and treat them in a friendly way.

The company's marketing department several years ago used focusgroups to find what customers wanted. The feedback included cleanstores with clean bathrooms and a wide variety of hot and coldfood.

As a result, Kwik Trip since 2002 has expanded into hot- andcold-prepared food products in a big way, and has increased itsselection of bakery items, coffee and other beverages.

By preparing its own dairy and other food products, andwarehousing and trucking them to its own stores, the companybenefits from vertical integration. Some of the nation's betterconvenience-store chains also use the vertical integration model,operating their own commissaries and bakeries, Don Zietlowsaid.

Dairy:

Every Monday, Don Zietlow receives a report detailing complaintscustomers have filed in the past week. Four complaints - such as notoilet paper in a stall - were received in the previous week, hesaid. He or Steve Zietlow call the customer who complained, andthen send a letter with a gift card.

"We thank them for bringing the problem to our attention," DonZietlow said. By treating customers that way, he said, "you cantake a negative and turn it into a positive."

The company's greatest accomplishment, Don Zietlow said,"probably is making a difference in the lives of our co-workers andmaking their lives better because of Kwik Trip. And taking care ofour customers."

Greatest disappointment? Zietlow said he can't think of one. "IfI lived my life over, I wouldn't change a thing. The Lord gave youtalents. Use your abilities as best you can."

BY THE NUMBERS

TOTAL EMPLOYEES: Kwik Trip has about 8,070 employees, up 8.2percent from 7,457 in 2006, in the three-state area of Wisconsin,Minnesota and Iowa that it serves.

LA CROSSE AREA EMPLOYEES: In the La Crosse area, the company hasabout 1,543 employees, up 10.5 percent from 1,396 in 2006. The LaCrosse-area numbers include the company's support center - which inturn includes such facilities as the commissary, bakery, dairybottling plant, ice cream plant, distribution center and corporateoffices - plus store locations in La Crosse, Onalaska, Holmen, WestSalem in Wisconsin and La Crescent, Minn. Most of the employmentgrowth has been at the support center.