Hy-Vee’s Bill Kelley retiring after 40 years in produce
Bill Kelley, the group vice president of produce commissary for Hy-Vee, is retiring after four decades with the company.
He started with Hy-Vee in 1978, a teenager bagging groceries, and when help was needed in the produce department one Saturday, he volunteered. That first exposure kickstarted a life in produce.
His roles with Hy-Vee have included produce manager stints with four stores and tenures as a produce purchasing specialist, assistant director of produce purchasing, director of produce purchasing, assistant vice president of produce purchasing, and his current role as group vice president of produce commissary, which includes leadership of the company’s popular ShortCuts value-added program and the facility that produces the many options in that line.
“It’s been a great ride,” Kelley said in an interview with The Packer and PMG. “I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly. I’m glad I got put into the produce department at a young age and caught that bug. It’s definitely been a career to enjoy, that’s for sure.”
Kelley’s peers voted him Staff Member of the Year in 2007, an honor that included induction into the Hy-Vee Hall of Fame.
Over his nearly two decades in purchasing, one of Kelley’s favorite parts of the job was finding great new items for stores and the relationships that came out of that pursuit.
“I never turned down a call, even if it was a salesman that had items that we already had in our stores,” Kelley said. “It was always worth the conversation, because somebody always has a new angle on things. Some of our best suppliers came that way, from just a cold call, and you end up with things that you didn’t have before.”
The growth of Hy-Vee’s ShortCuts program is just one example of how produce assortments nationwide have evolved over Kelley’s years in the business. The fresh-cut offerings were so popular for Hy-Vee that the company opened a facility to focus just on those products so the labor to make them could be centralized rather than in stores.
“It’s been a real treat to see that whole thing grow from where it was to where it is now,” Kelley said. “Who would have thought, 40 years ago when I started, that we’d be cutting up a watermelon for somebody? But it’s definitely the future.”
From the proliferation of varieties in different categories to the progression of packaging, Kelley has seen a lot of milestones in the produce and retail businesses.
“All the changes that have happened in the 40 years, it’s hard to fathom and hard to put into words,” Kelley said. “We’d unload 100-pound gunny sacks of potatoes off the back end of a truck on your shoulder and carry them into the store, and then you’d dump them into a bagger and bag your own potatoes, where everything comes now already ready to put on the shelf, for the most part, and now we’re cutting up for the consumer now so all they have to do is grab a fork. It’s crazy how it’s changed.”
While Kelley has spent his whole career with Hy-Vee, it has felt like he’s had a new job every few years, he said. Between moving from one store to another, then moving from the store level to the office, then moving from purchasing into leadership, then overseeing the produce commissary, Kelley has had a vast array of experiences over his years at Hy-Vee. Among the many highlights was getting to take groups of produce managers to visit suppliers so they could see operations and learn more about all that goes into the growing, packing and shipping of produce, Kelley said.
He noted that, upon his retirement, he will miss the people the most, both his colleagues and the many individuals across the industry that he’s become friends with over the years. It’s been fun to reconnect with those folks this week as they’ve offered congratulations on his retirement, Kelley said.
Matt Ludwig, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer for Hy-Vee, congratulated Kelley in a company memo.
“Bill has been an invaluable member of the produce department,” Ludwig wrote. “His leadership in the produce department has helped us lead our produce production into the present. The entire produce department and commissary will miss his ‘will do’ attitude and incredible knowledge of produce.”
Kelley said his last day on the job is March 5.
