The Wawa Way

Grahame Wood opened the first Wawa Food Market in 1964 as an outlet for Wawa dairy products. Since then, the convenience store has grown into a well-known company that competes against the biggest industry players in the world in three areas: fuel, convenience, and food, all while maintaining their personal approach and small business mentality. Now, almost 50 years later, Wawa has opened its first store in Florida and begun to play on the national field. How did it happen? What are the reasons for their success? Why have they been able to go up against the big guys with nothing more than homegrown talent?

With a mixture of personal history and business advice, Howard Stoeckel shares the last 50 years of Wawa’s growth, development, and expansion. It’s the story of how a small company with a funny name made a big difference and all it took was a little goose sense.