Des Moines Register
05-21-06
From bagger to president, Fred Greiner knows Fareway
By PATT JOHNSON
REGISTER BUSINESS WRITER
Boone, Ia. — The red and gold of Fareway Stores Inc. runs deep in Fred
Greiner's veins.
For nearly four decades - except for a couple of years in the Army - Greiner has
sacked groceries, stocked shelves, unloaded pallets, run the cash register,
managed stores and worked his way up to the executive offices at Fareway.
On March 1, Greiner became the first non-family member to be president of
Fareway. The transition, in which he replaced longtime President Robert Cramer,
was done without fanfare, much the way the 68-year-old privately held company
has always done business. No press releases, no ceremonial changing of the
guard.
It was, as all things Fareway are: simple and decisive.
"We are a conservative company," he said. "We quietly go about our business."
The 90-store chain of small groceries was founded in 1938 by partners Paul
Beckwith and Fred Vitt. For years, members of the two families, mainly the
Beckwiths, held the top job. About half of the 15-member board of directors
consists of Beckwith family members and one Vitt descendant.
"They have always treated me like family," said Greiner, 53. "We have always
worked together to grow the business."
Fareway board member P. Sue Beckwith, a Des Moines surgeon, said Greiner
has been a leader in the company for many years.
"He is like a member of the family. I don't see him as an outsider," she said.
Greiner has no grand plans to revamp the grocery chain, except maybe to
develop a company Web site. The company's straightforward philosophy of
giving customers the best produce, meats and groceries for the lowest prices has
always worked well, Greiner said. The no-frills Fareway stores don't have
accoutrements like pharmacies, banks, take-out Chinese food counters,
bakeries, video rental or florists like its supermarket and big-box competitors.
"We do not want to get into businesses we know nothing about," Greiner said.
It has maintained a familiar blueprint, building 25,000-square-foot stores, while
other chains, like Hy-Vee Inc., are building stores more than three times that
size. Nationally, the average store size is about 45,000 square feet, according to
the Food Marketing Institute, a national industry association.
"We do the best job we know how with what we offer," Greiner said. "We know
we give up a portion of the business to other stores."
Fareway's success is apparent. The company adds a couple of stores to its
stable each year. Fareway recently finished construction of a $22 million,
287,000-square-foot refrigerator warehouse adjacent to its offices on the edge of
Boone. Estimated sales for 2005 were $750 million, according to Hoovers Online,
which provides company information and industry profiles.
"Fareway is successful because it has a good business plan and sticks to it," said
Jerry Fleagle, president of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association. "They try not to
be all things to all people."
Fareway targets small- and medium-sized towns, which other chains tend to
avoid, although it has expanded in quickly growing suburbs of Des Moines,
Omaha and Cedar Rapids.
"They are a formidable competitor," said Ken Stone, a retail consultant from
Ames. "They have done a masterful job of sticking to a business plan that works
for them."
Fareway has maintained its smaller store model in an atmosphere where other
grocers think bigger is better, Stone said.
"Their advantage is that they have simplified shopping, especially for older
people who don't want to navigate larger stores," he said. Wide parking spaces,
low pricing, good sales and customer service are also a draw to the store, he
said.
"There are only so many dollars spent on food, and Fareway is certainly taking
some of that," Stone said.
Fareway proudly promotes some of its perks, like carting groceries to customers'
cars, custom-cut meats and being closed on Sundays.
"We have always given employees a day off to be with their families," Greiner
said. "We were pressured in some towns, like lake towns, to be open on
Sundays, but that would be changing one of our core principles."
Greiner was indoctrinated into the Fareway philosophy early. As the second-
oldest of eight children from an Independence family, Greiner went to work
sorting bottles and bagging potatoes at the local Fareway store.
"I was trying to find something better than walking beans and baling hay," he
said.
He worked there through high school and was then drafted into the U.S. Army,
where he had a job maintaining nuclear weapons.
After being discharged, Greiner returned to Fareway. He married his high school
sweetheart, Laurie, and the couple had three children.
He worked his way up through the assistant manager and manager jobs in
several Iowa stores. In 1989 he went to the company headquarters to work as a
district supervisor. In 1993 he was promoted to vice president, then six years
later to senior vice president. He also served as executive vice president and
chief operating officer before being named president in February.
He was able to rise to the top without a college education. He didn't have the
resources to pay tuition, he said. Instead, his education was the daily challenges
at his job.
"The way it all transpired was a little unusual, but the outcome has been terrific,"
he said. "Now it would be absolutely important to have a college education. We
encourage our employees to attend college."
Cramer, the retired president, always pictured Greiner as a top member of the
company's management team.
"I knew when I met him when he was young that he had great potential," Cramer
said. "He was very gracious, very calm and never got upset with things. He could
deal with anything by getting to the core root of it."
Cramer said he would often drag Greiner to meetings and events.
"He probably wondered at the time 'Why am I here?' But I wanted him to
experience things," Cramer said.
Cramer called Greiner a "great family man who I always felt would look after
things" at Fareway.
Both of Greiner's sons and his brother and a nephew work for Fareway.
Like the company he runs, his passions are straightforward: His family, job,
golfing, fishing, cheering on the Iowa Hawkeyes - he's president of the Boone IClub chapter - and NASCAR.
"He really loves NASCAR," said Gary Nystrom, a longtime friend. "Every year a
group of us goes to the Daytona 500. Fred won't go because the day after is
always Fareway's big main meeting. He knows how important his job is."
Nystrom, who is president of a Boone plumbing company, described Greiner as a
"straight shooter" and a true competitor.
His father's death in 1973, resulting from a fall off a television tower he was
working on, and his brother's murder at a Cedar Rapids food plant in 1995,
shaped his outlook on life, Nystrom said.
"Those events made him even more of a compassionate person," he said.
Greiner was 21 when his father died. The elder Greiner was working on a 2,000foot-high television tower north of Cedar Rapids when he fell.
Twenty-two years later, his brother Mark was one of two people shot to death by
an angry co-worker at the Ralston Food plant in Cedar Rapids. Two other people
were seriously wounded in that incident.
Greiner said the tragedies drew his family closer.
"When my father died, I ended up accepting more responsibility at a young age,"
he said. "I discovered that life could be difficult, but you have to move on."
He applies that tenet to his job.
"Day to day there are problems. You deal with the problem and move on," he
said.