A new fuel station in Colwich, Kansas could be the poster child for ethanol branding.

TJ Convenience store, which is supported by local ethanol plant designer ICM, offers four different ethanol blends – E10, E20, E30 and E85. The higher blends can only be used in flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs).

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) helped ICM president Dave Vander Griend cut the ribbon during a pump promotion held Monday to celebrate the opening of the new station and to kick off a new initiative in Kansas that will help fuel station retailers obtain funding and the equipment needed to sell higher blends of ethanol.

The station is literally branded from top to bottom with the “e” logo, developed as a brand for ethanol by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. One of the primary goals of the new Kansas initiative is to increase the state’s blender pump infrastructure by installing a minimum of 100 blender pumps over the next year. Currently there are three.

According to Kansas Corn Commission chairman Bob Timmons, the program “will help strengthen our economy by encouraging blender pump infrastructure development, and take us one step closer to weakening our dependence on foreign oil.”