This week’s The E15 Expressway: Web Chats with Retailers features Joe Zietlow, Industry and Trade Association Manager at Kwik Trip. Kwik Trip has been a retail industry pioneer for E15 and according to Zietlow, has been selling ethanol “since before it was cool”.
Kwik Trip is a family-owned company based in La Crosse, Wis. that employs more than 28,000 workers across 700+ stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Through vertical integration, Kwik Trip owns its bakery, dairy, kitchens, and distribution, including a 500-truck fleet: “We make it, we truck it, we sell it”. During his chat with Growth Energy’s Emily Skor, Zietlow explained how Kwik Trip applied this vertical integration to ethanol, building four facilities to regionally blend E10, E15, E85, and biodiesel to distribute to its own stores.