MILWAUKEE -- Ulysses S. Grant was serving his second term as President of the United States and a pound of roasted coffee cost 7 cents when the company that would eventually become Roundy's was founded in 1872.
y, now named Roundy, Peckham & Co., employed 60 store-level employees and 25 traveling salesmen, whose territory covered Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
In 1903, the company's first president, Charles J. Dexter, was elected. Under his watch, the first private-label item, salt, was introduced. Many more items followed.
Roy Johnson, a former sample boy, was elected president in 1938, succeeding Dexter. He promised to carry on the company's "family tradition" by maintaining its working ideals -- "cooperation and harmony" as taught to him by Dexter.
In 1953, the company's 80th year, it was acquired by Roundy's Inc., a new corporation owned exclusively by hundreds of successful retail grocers in Wisconsin.
The new company offered its owners a powerful incentive to buy their merchandise there -- a share in the profits. As owners, the retailers kept the wholesale prices low. A year later, ground was broken for a new, "ultramodern" 156,000-square-foot warehouse, which is now Roundy's Milwaukee division. Years of growth followed.
Over the next three decades, Roundy's continued to grow through a spate of acquisitions, as well as construction of its own facilities. In 1979, the company launched Super Market Investors, a subsidiary designed to offer financial assistance to qualified retailers for remodels and store projects. In 1988, Roundy's formed Super Marketing Productions, an in-house advertising agency that serves the wholesaler and its retail clients.
The recession of the early 1990s prompted Roundy's to develop a discount format, Mor For Less, in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. The stores, 16 of which remain, carry a limited line of meat, produce, frozens and dairy, concentrating on generic labels and virtually no national brands.
In 1993, Gerald F. Lestina was elected president and chief operating officer. Lestina had joined the company in 1970 to develop Insurance Planners, a wholly owned subsidiary offering insurance lines to Roundy's member stores. Lestina developed Roundy's real estate division in 1986 and played a major role in the development and expansion of Pick 'n Save stores. He was appointed Milwaukee division president in 1986. In 1995, Lestina became chief executive officer.
