CASY

What You Should Know

Casey's General Stores, Inc. is a publicly-traded operator of convenience stores and fuel-retail outlets concentrated in the Midwest and South-Central United States, generating revenue across three categories: Fuel (retail gasoline-and-diesel sales), Grocery & General Merchandise (packaged beverages, snacks, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, lottery, and general-merchandise items), and Prepared Food & Dispensed Beverages (Casey's well-known made-from-scratch pizza, bakery, and other prepared-food-and-dispensed-beverage offerings). The fuel-retail, prepared-food, grocery, and general-merchandise activities are permissible at the activity level — selling gasoline, pizza, snacks, and general convenience items is a general-purpose retail activity. However, Casey's convenience stores derive a material share of in-store merchandise revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages, tobacco-and-nicotine products, and lottery tickets (gambling). Under standard Sharia screening methodology, alcohol-sales revenue, tobacco-sales revenue, and lottery-and-gambling revenue are haram revenue, and at a convenience-store-and-fuel retailer these categories together typically exceed the conventional 5% haram-revenue threshold. This places Casey's in doubtful-to-impermissible territory. Scholar opinions differ on convenience-store retailers: some boards screen them out on the combined alcohol-tobacco-lottery revenue, while others assess the specific haram-revenue percentage against the threshold. The verdict hinges on the measured haram-revenue share at the preferred board.