The Midwest Gas Station Chain That Bakes Fresh Treats Every Day

You don't usually expect much from food at a gas station, other than something to fill your stomach and maybe not-great coffee to perk you up. But gas station food is leaving its bad reputation behind with fresher and tastier options, even if it doesn't stack up to the unexpectedly delicious food at Italian gas stations — at least, not yet. One popular Midwest gas station chain that's been making its mark is Kwik Trip, and part of its formula for success is the baked treats it makes fresh every day.

Kwik Trip touts that it's a vertically integrated company, meaning that it makes and transports most of the food it sells for better quality and efficiency. That's why some 80 percent of the products in its gas station convenience stores are from its own brands. To accomplish that, Kwik Trip has its own bakeries, kitchens, a dairy, and a distribution center at a 140-acre facility in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the city that's also home to its corporate headquarters. A fleet of hundreds of company-owned trucks also make daily deliveries to its nearly 900 stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, as well as Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota, where it's called Kwik Star.

There are two separate bakeries at Kwik Trip's La Crosse production location. One makes sweet treats like donuts, cookies, and pastries, and the other produces breads and buns. Each of them turns out hundreds of thousands of baked goods a day.

The top-selling and best-known product at Kwik Trip is a delectable donut called the Glazer, which is made in its sweet bakery. Introduced by the chain in 2003, the soft, fluffy treat is coated with a vanilla-accented sugary glaze. More than 47 million Glazers are sold each year, but donut lovers can also choose from other house bakery-made varieties, too, including frosted Long Johns (the king of pastries), cream- or jelly-filled Bismarcks, and Persians, which are fried and frosted cinnamon rolls.

For its non-baked foods, Kwik Trip's kitchens make prepared items like breakfast and lunch sandwiches, burgers, fried chicken, burritos, snacks, and some 40,000 pizzas a day. The dairy receives milk daily from farms that are located within 100 miles of its corporate headquarters. The milk is pasteurized, bottled in plastic jugs (also made by Kwik Trip), and delivered to stores, all within 24 hours. The dairy also produces ice cream from the milk for one of the company's brands.

Vertical integration has worked phenomenally well for Kwik Trip, which began in 1965 with a single store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and is now one of the largest privately-owned convenience store chains in the United States. It earned top honors for Best Gas Station for Food and Best Gas Station Brand in USA Today's 2025 10 Best Road Trip Awards. Its success has even been celebrated by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who marked the 60th anniversary of its founding by declaring June 16, 2025, Kwik Trip Day in the state.