To those in the know, asking how Wawa got its name is silly and makes about as much sense as asking what a hoagie is. In each case the answer is taken for granted by all those consumers in six U.S. states who frequent the 720 venues owned and operated by this fast-growing convenience-store chain. These customers buy some 80 million hoagies annually.
The word “hoagie” is just a regional name for a made-to-order submarine sandwich filled with cold cuts, cheese and anything else the customer wants to cram between two halves of a long roll of baguette-style bread split lengthwise. According to folklore, the name derives from what the Italian workers at a large shipyard on Hog Island, near Philadelphia, used to call their lunch. Elsewhere the sandwich may be called a hero, a grinder, or, of course, a sub.
Wawa, Inc., derived its name indirectly from a Native American word for the Canada geese that flew over the Delaware River Valley — hence the logo’s in-flight goose image. This area is where the privately held company began life about two centuries ago, though not as a convenience store — originally, it was an iron foundry. In 1902 foundry owner George Wood took up dairy farming with a small processing plant near Wawa, as the rural town in eastern Pennsylvania is called, and this developed into a milk delivery business. In 1964 grandson Grahame Wood ventured into retail directly by opening the first Wawa Food Market, primarily as an outlet for his dairy products, in Folsom, Pa.
Today each Wawa outlet carries, besides those trademark hoagies, some 6,000 items, including freshly brewed coffee, a hot breakfast sandwich called the Sizzli, paninis, quesadillas, wraps, soups, salads, snacks, specialty beverages and bakery goods. “We’re more than a traditional convenience store where you’re just going to get convenience products such as newspapers, cigarettes and packaged items,” said John Poplawski, Wawa’s director of real estate, who leads the site acquisition and development team. “We’re also not just a traditional fuel provider; we are a great provider of terrific food that [also] happens to sell gas.”
Still based in the town that inspired its name, Wawa employs 26,000. Though the company is privately held, 40 percent of its workers participate in the employee stock ownership plan, hence the proliferation of Wawa associates wearing name
tags proclaiming, “Proudly Associate Owned,” at their 24-hour, 365-days-per-year operations.
“The point is that our people have a deeper connection and relationship with their customers than most retailers,” said Lori Bruce, Wawa’s public-relations manager, who points to the chain’s 1.3 million followers on Facebook. “They share stories. The other day there was a post from a family so grateful for an associate who cheered on their son for having won a hockey game the day before.”
Each Wawa store occupies roughly 6,000 square feet on roughly an acre, to give customers the ability to get in and out quickly. An ideal site, Poplawski says, is the corner of two main roads with a daily traffic volume of about 25,000 motor vehicles and a mix of daytime workers and nighttime residents. The company invests about $5 million per site and seeks long-term leases of 10 or 20 years initially, with options thereafter, he says.
From Wawa’s roots outside Philadelphia, Wawa ventured into New Jersey in 1968 and into Delaware in 1969. Now there are Wawa stores also in Maryland, Virginia and Florida. “We’ve now got over 80 stores in Florida, and that’s just since July 2012,” said Poplawski. “We plan to grow to over 300 locations in Florida.” Wawa’s rapid success in the Sunshine State has been impressive, according to Justin Greider, JLL’s vice president of retail brokerage in Florida. “They really don’t market themselves as a gas station, despite the fact that they have a huge gas station sitting in front of each of their stores,” said Greider. “They really focus their marketing here on attracting consumers to come inside and get their coffee, their sandwich and their donut, those kinds of things.”
Beyond Florida, Wawa has opened several venues in northern New Jersey over the past year or so, and the company has roughly 60 more waiting to be approved or built in that same region, Poplawski says. The company says it will continue to concentrate its expansion efforts in these existing regions for the time being.
