10 Remarkable Remarks From Top Grocery Execs in 2020

From Whole Foods CEO John Mackey to Aldi USA CEO Jason Hart, WGB connected with grocery executives throughout 2020 to discuss change, pivoting, expansion and survival in the most challenging year of our lifetimes. 

Aldi USA CEO Jason Hart in July on the pace of the chain’s U.S. expansion: “In total this year, we expect to open nearly 100 new stores. We continue to outpace our competitors as we expand in markets we already serve, as well as in new ones, and are on track to become the third-largest U.S. grocer by store count by the end of 2022.”

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey on Amazon acquisition: “I feel that our relationship with Amazon is best described as a ‘happy marriage.’ Amazon’s customer-centered culture meshed so well with ours and now our customers get to enjoy lower prices and access new services such as grocery delivery and pickup. Team members benefited from Amazon’s decision to raise the minimum wage but also through the opportunity, which helps us hire and retain talent.”

Southeastern Grocers CEO Anthony Hucker on SGE’s transformation: “We are making steady progress and we are on our expected pace. We feel increasingly confident in the accuracy, efficacy and validity of our long-term strategy. However, none of this progress would be possible without our greatest asset: our people.” 

Ocado Solutions CEO Luke Jensen on The Kroger Co.’s ambitions to evolve its online grocery business: “The challenge of online grocery is not specific to Kroger. The challenge is that when you do the sums, you realize that it’s either impossible to make money doing it, or extremely, extremely difficult to do anything more than break even. This is a problem that every grocer has around the world.”

SpartanNash CEO Tony Sarsam on how the pandemic has informed the company’s path ahead: “One thing we have learned is we are not as nimble as we need to be in the wake of a disruptive event. We have opportunities for improvement, including, as I mentioned, bringing process tools into our operations to be more effective and efficient.”

Good Food Holdings CEO Neil Stern on market positioning: “The U.S. market is very crowded in the middle with conventional grocery stores and e-commerce exploding, and it’s really hard to differentiate yourself. With our five banners, we’re in the premium space and the natural/organic space and I believe that even as things go online, we’ll be neatly positioned. … We think we’re in a growth area of the market and if there’s such a thing as white space, we think there’s some available. There’s lots of great competitors in every market we’re in, but we’ve found and proved there’s a place for us.”

Redner’s Markets President and CEO Ryan Render on his vision for the company’s future: “We’ll never stop wanting to open brick-and-mortar stores. … I’ll never forget this: A couple of years ago, everyone was scared to death of Amazon, and listen, they’re good, they’re good at what they do, and they are a scary beast. But I told everybody on our team, ‘Amazon is great at what they do, but they only do one thing, and that is online shopping.’ … But Amazon was smart enough to go out and spend hundreds of million dollars on what? Brick-and-mortar grocery stores. They bought Whole Foods. They know how important brick-and-mortar is because they just invested hundreds of million dollars into it. So we’re in the right business. We’re just going backwards. We started with brick-and-mortar and we're growing into the e-commerce side.”

Online Indian food merchant Subziwalla co-founder Manav Thaker on one thing the food retail industry could learn from his company: “Authenticity through personalization. There’s no one-size-fits-all option in retail anymore. Subziwalla is catering to a niche audience, which allows us to hyper-focus on their specific needs and build trust within the community through authenticity. We resonate with both our target audience and consumers outside of the community, converting them by cultivating credibility and aligning our values with a unique understanding of the culture.”

Healthy Living Market CEO Eli Lesser-Goldsmith on the expanding natural food store’s competition: “The answer is everyone and no one. For years, the natural foods industry had very little competition. Then more retailers entered the space and tried to do what we do. But while more retailers may be able to enter the market, Healthy Living has authenticity and real history in the space. We’ve been doing this since 1986. We know what guests are looking for, both in product and in experience.”

Stew Leonard’s Farm Fresh Foods CEO Stew Leonard Jr. on the biggest lesson learned in the pandemic: “We all deal with the issue of centralization versus decentralization: How much authority do you give other people to make decisions? A lot of people want to centralize everything with one person in a corporate office. What I noticed during the pandemic—my biggest management lesson—it’s really good to be decentralized. … It allowed us to pivot quickly to react to each one of the communities. I realized how great it is to have a nimble, quick-moving management team.”