State of Pennsylvania in the Philadelphia metropolitan area is home to the iconic Wawa stores. Partly located in the township of Middletown and partly in the district of Chester Heights, Wawa operates stores on the east side of Pennsylvania and none are located west of the Susquehanna River. Recently, a Wawa store has come to a retail and residential development in Mount Joy Township, just east of Elizabethtown in Lancaster County. Wawa began its journey with the motto 'Buy Health by the Bottle' and served customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, delivering milk to customers' homes.
Some thought it would never happen, but Wawa is now moving closer to central Pennsylvania and the territory of its competitor Sheetz. As a private company, Wawa ensures an independent assessment of the value of its shares at regular intervals to ensure that the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program) is fairly maintained. In some Jersey Shore cities, Wawa designs its stores to match aesthetics and changes operating procedures to adapt to coastal culture. Wawa also operates stores in Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington D.
C.In 1977, Wawa began sharing ownership of the company with its associates through profit-sharing plans. The Wood family as a whole controls about 725 acres (293 ha) of land, which contains the corporate headquarters, the Wawa dairy farm, and J. Wawa Dairy Farm. For the most part, Wawa covers parts of Pennsylvania that are not yet serviced by rival stores such as Sheetz, which is often compared to Wawa due to its similar business models and roots in Pennsylvania. Wawa also offers a brand of hot breakfast items, the most famous of which is Sizzli, and also a delicatessen shop complete with touchscreen orders for sandwiches, hot sides, drinks and cold cuts.
Although Wawa is a family business, Wawa associates own approximately 50% of the company, more than 40% of which is owned by the company's employee stock ownership program. The name of the city of Wawa is in turn derived from the word ojibwe wewe (pronounced way-way) which means snow goose, despite the company's image of a Canadian goose. The chain's name comes from the site of the company's first dairy plant and corporate headquarters in the Wawa, Pennsylvania area. It owns 50 acres (20 ha) of land around Red Roof, the corporate headquarters, 150 acres (61 ha) of land around the Wawa dairy, and 225 acres (91 ha) J.Sheetz and Wawa have been building stores along the borders of Lancaster and Berks counties for some time now. Both companies are based in Altoona and have been competing for customers ever since.
