Casey's Just Broke Its Own Record

The convenience-store chain headquartered off SE Convenience Boulevard just posted the most profitable year in its history — and it's about to get bigger. Ankeny's hometown Fortune 500 company had a very good spring. Let's roll. 🚲

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Casey's General Stores — the pizza-and-fuel chain run out of Ankeny — closed its fiscal year with record net income of $714 million, up 31% from the year before, on diluted earnings of $19.16 per share. Executives laid out the numbers on the company's late-June earnings call.

Then came the part that shapes the next year: Casey's says it plans to open at least 120 more stores in fiscal 2027, through a mix of acquisitions and new construction — roughly a 4% bump to a footprint that already tops 2,900 locations across the Midwest.

It's easy to forget the third-largest convenience chain in the country is run from an office park on Ankeny's south side. A record year is a reminder: the town's most famous export isn't a landmark, it's a company — and it's growing.

📍 Source: CSP Daily News | Business Record

On July 17, the FFA Enrichment Center on the DMACC campus hosts the Iowa Farm Bureau's 2026 Economic Summit — and the morning headliner is a genuinely national name. Robert "Bob" Lighthizer, the former U.S. Trade Representative who negotiated the USMCA and the 2020 China trade deal, sits down for a fireside chat on the future of ag trade. National Milk Producers CEO Gregg Doud keynotes the afternoon.

The theme is "Trade Crossroads," and the timing is pointed: tariffs and shifting export markets are front-of-mind for Iowa farmers. It's open to Farm Bureau members and the public with registration; the summit opens with a reception the evening of July 16.

📍 Source: Iowa Farm Bureau

Remember the Hy-Vee "Fresh Commissary" on SE Delaware Avenue that got shuttered? JBS USA is spending $100 million to buy the 186,000-square-foot plant and convert it into what it says will be the largest ready-to-eat bacon and sausage facility in its U.S. portfolio. The project is expected to create about 400 jobs at full build-out — and JBS has said it wants to rehire the workers who lost their jobs when the plant closed. A rare second life for a shuttered facility.

📍 Source: Iowa Capital Dispatch

Yesterday the warning was supposed to lift tonight. It didn't. The National Weather Service extended Ankeny's Extreme Heat Warning again — it now runs through 10 p.m. Thursday.

📍 Source: NWS Des Moines forecast for Ankeny

A quiet holiday week around town — the library is closed July 3–4 and the chamber's event feed was down this morning — so here's the short list that matters:

Most backyard sheds mean a big-box kit and a weekend of arguing with instructions. Kevin Grall's dealership delivers yours fully built — and finances it without ever running your credit.

Premier Portable Buildings of Des Moines is a husband-and-wife shop that's worked the same lot on NE 14th Street (US 69), just south of Ankeny, for more than a decade — and bills itself as the largest Premier dealer in Iowa, with Ankeny squarely inside its free-delivery zone. Beyond storage sheds, the lineup runs to lofted cabins (finish one as an office or backyard getaway), chicken coops, greenhouses, dog kennels, enclosed trailers and poly patio furniture — a dozen styles, sizes up to 16 feet wide. Buy straight off the lot or design your own with their online ShedView tool. The real hook is the terms: rent-to-own with no credit check and no credit application, paid off over 36 to 48 months.

The basics:

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Ankeny's business engine is loud this week: the hometown Fortune 500 (Casey's) just booked a record year and is adding 120 stores, a shuttered food plant is coming back with 400 jobs, and a former U.S. trade chief is headed to town on the 17th. First, though — get through one more 90°+ stretch.

Thursday: your full weekend guide — where to catch metro fireworks before Ankeny's own show, and whether those storms finally break the heat.

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