Cenex to operate Zip Trips

The Minnesota company that operates Cenex Inc. is buying 33 Spokane-area and North Idaho Zip Trip convenience stores.

The 33 stores, which constitute the largest locally owned convenience store chain, had been operated the past two years by Spokane business owner Ian Johnstone. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

The majority of the stores involved in the purchase are in metropolitan Spokane, with others in Clarkston, Wash., and in Coeur d’Alene, Bonners Ferry, Moscow, Lewiston and Grangeville, Idaho.

Cenex, a division of Minnesota-based CHS Inc., operates 1,600 convenience store locations nationwide, with about half of those also selling gasoline. Many of them are operated by cooperatives or independent retailers.

Cenex already has six retail stores in Spokane operated by an independent dealer. But the 33 newly purchased stores will be run directly by Cenex.

Those new stores will be converted to the Cenex brand over the next several months, according to a release by CHS. A spokesperson for the company said current store managers and staff will be retained.

Johnstone acquired the 33 stores two years ago from previous owner Ron Armacost, of Liberty Lake. Armacost said Tuesday that Cenex likely sees the locations as a way to help broaden its reach, both in convenience store retail and fuel sales.

“Cenex has their own refinery system. This gives them a good way to add another area and broaden that delivery of fuel to more customers,” said Armacost.

Don Olson, a vice president of refined fuels for CHS, said in a press release that the Pacific Northwest is geographically a logical area to add new stores. “The proximity to our Laurel, Mont., refinery allows us to efficiently provide reliable supplies of quality gasoline and diesel fuel to these retail locations,” he said.