Hy-Vee Chairman Ron Pearson Named to Power 50

July 29, 2004; WEST DES MOINES, IA – Ron Pearson, Chairman of the board of Hy-Vee, Inc., has been named to a national trade publication’s 2004 list of the 50 most influential figures in the food industry.

This is the second year Supermarket News has published a list of “Fifty People Who Drive the Food Industry.” The so-called “Power 50” includes representatives of the retail, wholesale and manufacturing sectors of the industry, as well government officials, association leaders and others who affect the food business.

Pearson was cited for leading Hy-Vee to outstanding sales results (more than 5.5 percent growth in comparable-store sales through nine months of the fiscal year) in the face of unprecedented competition from supercenters and other retail formats. He was also praised as a champion of Hy-Vee’s unique operating philosophy, which encourages autonomy and entrepreneurship. “An eagle-list leader of an eagle-list company,” is how one industry analyst described him.

Tim Hammonds, president and CEO of the Food Marketing Institute and himself a member of the Top 50 list, said Pearson’s skills proved invaluable to the industry during his two-year term as chairman of FMI. “He has an extraordinary talent and ability to pull a consensus together from a large group of people and point them all in the same direction, and motivate them toward a very high level of performance,” Hammonds said.

Pearson credited Hy-Vee’s success to its employee-owners, who “do the right things and make the right decisions” because they have a personal stake in the company’s future and the authority to make decisions on behalf of customers. He noted that after a decade-and-a-half of aggressive reinvestment in the company’s facilities, Hy-Vee is now upgrading all its front-end and back-office computer systems to take advantage of the latest technological innovations.