(Radio Iowa) – The Ankeny-based Casey’s convenience store chain reported good results in the first-quarter of the new fiscal year. Senior vice president Brian Johnson spoke about the results in a conference call. “Total revenue for the quarter was four-point-six billion dollars, that’s an increase of 469 million dollars or 11-and-a-half percent from the prior year. That’s due primarily to higher inside sales as well as higher fuel gallons sold, partially offset by a lower retail fuel price,” he says. He says summer is always a busy time for stores and that proved to be true in the first quarter that started in July.

“Total inside sales for the quarter were one-point six-eight billion dollars, an increase of 210 million dollars or 14-point-two percent from the prior year,” Johnson says. Some of the growth in sales is from recently acquired stores, though C-E-O Darin Rebelez says the conversions including kitchens have not yet been complete in the newly acquired stores in Texas. Rebelez says the acquisition market for smaller store chains continues to be active, while buying larger chains is dependent on decisions by those companies.

“We’re having some conversations with folks. We haven’t had anything active at the moment, but we’re in the market and we’ll see how things evolve as we get through the year,” he says. Rebelez says they are staying with the plan to expand with a 50-50 mix of purchased and newly built stores. “You know our geography that we operate in today can support a large number of new stores in it, there’s a lot of towns and a lot of white space that do not have Casey’s that would benefit from one,” he says. “So we see a really unlimited runway for unit development just within our geography, let alone in the adjacent states to that.”

Casey’s has approximately 29-hundred convenience stores in 19 states.