EXCLUSIVE: Behind Giant Eagle’s Sale of the GetGo Business
With the June 29 closing of a sale to Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., Giant Eagle Inc.’s GetGo banner may be gone from its business but certainly isn’t forgotten. Through the deal, GetGo customers can continue to enjoy rewards from the myPerks loyalty program and GetGo employees will remain in their office space in the Giant Eagle corporate building.
The transition was designed to be as seamless as possible for GetGo shoppers and workers, Giant Eagle President and CEO Bill Artman told Progressive Grocer in a recent interview. “We first wanted to make sure we were selling to the right parent – we wanted someone who appreciates the brand of GetGo, who was interested in onboarding our team members and who would keep the loyalty program that was very important to our customers,” he said of the arrangement that was about 15 months in the works. “We put a lot of time, energy and love into the brand over the years."
[RELATED: Giant Eagle Selling C-Store Business to Couche-Tard]
In addition to selling its fuel and c-store business to a proven leader in that space, Giant Eagle recently spun off its wholesale motor fuels distribution business to the Cary Oil Company. Those moves allow the regional grocer to prioritize its core grocery and pharmacy operations, Artman affirmed. “For a while now, we have wanted to focus on being the best version of Giant Eagle that we can be. We believe that reinvesting back in our grocery and pharmacies is great opportunity for us,” he said.
Artman continued, “The disruption that happened with Rite-Aid gave us an opportunity to acquire a number of scripts and reinvest capital into supermarkets for remodels and rebuilds.” To his point, Giant Eagle announced in May that it had acquired customer prescriptions from nearly 80 Rite-Aid stores that shuttered after that retailer filed bankruptcy for the second time in two years.
More store refreshes are in the works as Giant Eagle narrows its retail sights in a shopper-centric way. “We have hundreds of millions of dollars planned over the next five years to build and remodel supermarkets,” Artman reported, noting that one new store recently opened outside of Pittsburgh and another new outpost is set to be unveiled within those city limits.
In the conversation with PG, Artman said that the regional grocer recognizes the affinity that its customers have for Giant Eagle. “Any time I get an opportunity to tour our stores, I love getting feedback from customers and employees. We get a lot of things right, but we have an opportunity for improvements, to,” he remarked. “Our customers really take possession of their local stores. If I’m in an airport and have a Giant Eagle logo on, people will come up and talk about ‘my Giant Eagle’,” he said.
Artman expressed gratitude to those who supported and facilitated the deal that keeps shoppers and team members top of mind. “We are really excited about the future, we are appreciative of the 3,500 GetGo team members who have built the brand and we wish Couche-Tard the best as we move forward,” he said.
As Giant Eagle moves on, Couche-Tard will take over 270 GetGo and WetGo fuel stations as part of the acquisition valued at $1.57 billion. The deal was signed off by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which approved the arrangement to sell 34 Circle K stores and one GetGo site to address any antitrust issues.
To mark the completion of the transaction and the new loyalty partnership, GetGo will offer customers a free self-serve beverage and award three times the perks on every gallon of fuel purchased with a myPerks loyalty card at all GetGo locations on July 19 and July 20.
Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle has more than 470 stores throughout western Pennsylvania, north central Ohio, northern West Virginia, Maryland and Indiana. The food retailer is No. 42 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2025 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.
Alimentation Couche-Tard operates in 29 countries and territories, with close to 17,000 stores, of which approximately 13,000 offer road transportation fuel. With its Couche-Tard and Circle K banners, it is one of the largest independent convenience store operators in the United States.
