Wawa, Inc. Public Relations photographs and audiovisual materials

Wawa is an American chain of convienence stores and gas stations located in the Middle Atlantic States and Florida, well-known for their made-to-order hoagies. Wawa, Inc. dates back to 1803, when David Cooper Wood (1781-1859) established an iron furnace and foundry in Millville, New Jersey, to fabricate stove plates and iron pipe. Wood used his experience in the dry good trade and extensive business connections build Millville Furnace, as the business was then known, into a successful venture. Millville Furnace sold its wares in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey and even earned the commission to cast pipe for the second phase of Philadelphia's Fairmount water works in 1819 to 1822. David's brother Richard Davis Wood (1799-1869) assumed control of the business in 1851 and expanded the scope of its operations. In addition to enlarging the iron works, R.D. Wood built a cotton mill, glassworks, grist mill, sawmill, and a gasworks. R.D. Wood incorporated his enterprises as the Millville Manufacturing Company in 1865. George Wood (1842-1926), R.D.'s son, took over the business in 1869 and made textiles the primary focus. Millville Manufacturing soon became one of the area's leading producers of yarn, cloth, and finished cotton goods.

In 1892, George Wood bought a house in Wawa, Pennsylvania (Delaware County) known as "Red Roof" because of its distinctive roof color. The word "Wawa", from which the town takes its name, is a Lenni Lenape word for "wild goose" or "land of the big goose." Wawa stuck as a local name because of the large numbers of Canadian geese then living in the lower Delaware River valley. Wood later acquired several tracts of land adjacent to the Red Roof property on which he built a dairy and milk processing plant. George officially opened this new venture, called Wawa Dairy Farms, in 1902. The Wawa Dairy Farms specialized in home delivery of milk and quickly earned a reputation for high-quality "certified" dairy products. Wawa Dairy Farms' markets included Philadelphia and lower New Jersey. By 1945, the dairy had become one of the most successful aspects of George Wood's business ventures, all of which were incorporated into the Millville Manufacturing Company.

By the early 1960s, both the dairy and textile divisions of Millville Manufacturing Company were on the decline. A combination of the increased use of synthetic fibres and the textile industry's move to the South (where labor and materials costs were less) made Millville's textile operations unprofitable. (The company liquidated the textile and other manufacturing aspects of the business during the 1960s.) Wawa Dairy Farms lost ground due to decreased demand for home milk delivery and increased competition from supermarkets.

Grahame Wood (1915-1982), George Wood's grandson, took the opportunity to revitalize Millville Manufacturing Company by focusing entirely on the dairy. After doing research on convenience stores, Grahame convinced Millville's board of directors to enter retail food sales to tap into the growing consumer demand for quick and easy shopping and as an outlet for Wawa Dairy Farms products. On 16 April 1964, Wood opened the first Wawa Food Market in Folsom, Pennsylvania. The store became an almost instant success by selling deli meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and other grocery goods in a convenience store setting. By the end of 1964, Wood built two additional Wawa stores to capitalize on the first store's popularity.

Wawa Food Markets grew throughout the 1970s, opening stores in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland. Wawa stores continued selling dairy and other fresh food products and added food service departments that made sandwiches and other hot foods. In 1977, Richard "Dick" Wood, Jr. (Grahame's second cousin, b. 1938) became president of Wawa Food Markets, eventually taking over as CEO in 1981. Dick Wood presided over Wawa's continued growth during the 1980s and 1990s, which included adding coffee to the stores' list of products; expanding the line of hoagies and other foodservice products (Wawa led a 1992 campaign to get the hoagie named the official sandwich of Philadelphia); introducing a myriad of technological innovations to product control, store management, and foodservice; and adding gasoline pumps to many stores. Wawa eventually closed all of its stores in Connecticut but built additional stores within their existing market areas and expanded operations into tidewater Virginia. By 2007, Wawa operated over 570 stores in five states.

Wawa Food Markets are now called Wawa, Inc., and is not under the umbrella of Millville Manufacturing Company. (Millville Manufacturing had been dissolved, don't know exactly when.) The company is privately owned by descendents of George Wood and participants in the Employee Stock Ownership Plan. In 2004, Howard Stoeckel (1945-) became CEO of Wawa, Inc. and is the first person who is not a member of the Wood family to hold the position. Dick Wood, who remained as Chairman of the Board, and other Wood family members retained key management positions.