Six years after announcing it would make its premier ExtraMile
convenience store concept available to franchisees, Chevron Corp. has defied the odds by growing an upscale brand in a downturned economy.
“We’ve chosen to grow a brand in the middle of a recession,” Cary Knuth, general manager of Chevron America’s Products West, told CSP Daily News in an exclusive interview. “That’s not done very often.”
Not that the recession hasn’t taken its toll. In 2009, the company added just over 100 new franchisees to it roll, but thing slowed down in 2010, when about 50 new franchisee sites were added.