ROCKFORD, Ill. -- Road Ranger's decision to sell unbranded gasoline has given it the freedom to grow as fast as it wants, company officials told The Rockford Register Star. More than three years after it stopped selling CITGO gasoline, the chain is back to branding by touting its own "Ranger Fuels" offerings.

Instead of having a contract with a gasoline supplier, Road Ranger is now buying its gasoline directly from refineries, said the report. And as the company heads toward 100 locations, it hopes its new proprietary branding will keep business growth brisk even as gasoline sales slump.

"Our brand is too important to us to delegate out to another oil company," president Dan Arnold told the newspaper. "We are fully accountable for the quality of the gasoline and the quality of the experience.... There are a lot of companies out there, and we need to compete for the customer."

To establish a brand for its particular blend of gasoline, the company chose a theme—regular unleaded is "Mustang," midgrade is "Stallion" and premium is "Thoroughbred"—and will donate money to the American Wild Horses Preservation Campaign. (Click here for details.) Road Ranger's brochures call it "horsepower with a purpose."

The gasoline Road Ranger buys from refiners is the same as the gasoline big suppliers get. The difference between gasolines is generally in the additives that are introduced when trucks are loaded at the terminals. Road Ranger promotes its gasoline as meeting "Top Tier" detergent standards set by several automakers. Proponents say the additive limits deposits in fuel systems and prolongs engine life. Shell and Phillips 66 also sell Top Tier gasoline locally, while other retailers have their own blends of additives, the report said.

Road Ranger's growth is one of the reasons Buckeye Terminals LLP is building a new storage tank at its terminal in west Rockford, one of several terminals in the region, according to the report. Road Ranger will be one of the primary customers of the 3.1-million-gallon tank, which is where gasoline from pipelines is stored before put on trucks.

The tank, three times the size of any other tank at Buckeye's terminal, gives Road Ranger more flexibility in buying its own gasoline and mitigating some price spikes, Arnold said. It also could limit the number of times gasoline is in short supply locally, said the report, which forces retailers to pay more for gasoline from other areas.

For further technical reading about the specific benefits of Top Tier gasoline click here.

Rockford-based Road Ranger is a retail petroleum convenience store chain that operates company locations in the states of Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin and Ohio. Founded in 1984, it currently employs approximately 1,000 individuals and estimates that it will reach approximately $900 million in revenues for the current year.