Though he’s moved around plenty within the supermarket industry itself, Gary Proffitt has enjoyed being a one-career man. He entered the business in high school, and shortly after attending the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, he went to work with the Phillips Company in their warehouse-format Food 4 Less stores. As he made his way up through the ranks, he worked as manager, co-manager and assistant manager in different locations, quickly setting himself apart as a standout operations guru. For Proffitt, there was never any doubt he had found his calling.
“I always knew I would like it and be good at it,” he said. “You get to make decisions, and when you get through, it’s something that you and your people have built together.”
In an era before ubiquitous Walmart Supercenters, the Phillips Company wanted to open a new type of store in Little Rock, in a format Proffitt described as “Food 4 Less on steroids.” The company would call it Mega Market, and it would call on Proffitt to get things off the ground. After a successful launch there, Proffitt applied his expertise to the remodel of the company’s Conway store.
“By the time we finished, I was running a store that had a floral department, a seafood department and a separate deli and bakery. I mean, we scratch-made croissants in that store,” Proffitt said.
The chain ended up selling to Walmart in 1992, and Proffitt had the experience behind him at that point to realize he didn’t want to work for the corporate giant. The thing about Food 4 Less that had excited him was the personal and community-first structural approach: managers had a say in the look and merchandising of their own stores, rather than working from a set of cookie-cutter rules.
After leaving the Phillips Company, Proffitt went to work as a retail counselor, where he called on independent supermarkets in an advisory capacity. He’d assess the store’s operations and sit down with the owners to discuss everything from current conditions to market trends. The first time Proffitt met Oral and Steve Edwards of GES, Inc. – a company better known by its store names, Edwards Food Giant and Edwards Cash Saver – he was adding them to his customer list. Within a year of Proffitt calling on the pair, however, the Edwards knew they’d want to keep him around in a more permanent role. Proffitt officially joined GES in 1996 as vice president of operations, and he still holds the title today.
“At Food 4 Less, they taught me how to be a professional. Steve and Oral taught me how to operate a family-owned company and do it right,” Proffitt said.
“Doing it right” means a lot of things in Edwards stores. It means putting in the research to tailor each location to the community it serves. It means giving managers the autonomy they need to thrive. As Proffitt explains it, the driving idea behind everything the company does is treating people right and being fair.
“It’s one of the biggest things the Edwards do that is different from the corporate world. People have to kind of get used to it. I’m not sure it’s hard to get used to, because it wasn’t for me,” Proffitt said. “If you’re good at what you do and you’re happy to be here, they want you here. Showing people they’re appreciated is the key to the whole thing.”
Proffitt joined GES at a particularly fraught moment for the company. With Walmart expanding its footprint by the day, there were questions about the future of the Edwards brand. Though GES did have to shrink back at first to adjust its sails, Proffitt attributes the company’s eventual success to that core ethos and family-owned culture – in addition to a bit of sales savvy from one of its employees.
“Our meat director, Bob Childers, came to me. He said, ‘Gary, I’d like to do a Pick 5.’ I’d never heard of it,” Proffitt said. “You’d buy five packages of meat, and even though they each had a different cost, you’d get them for $19.99.”
The idea couldn’t have come at a better time. Steve Edwards, seeing that the company’s competitors were moving away from in-store meat cutting and processing, had brought forward his own ideas for leaning into that market gap and becoming “the Meat People.”
“We still do Pick 5 today. It was a hit,” Proffit said. “You won’t find any independent retailers that don’t do it in some fashion today, and we were one of the first to do it.”
The company also set itself apart with some well-timed investments into software upgrades. Proffitt said Edwards stores were some of the first that could ring up a Pick 5 deal properly, making the choice for shoppers even easier.
At one point, GES was down to three stores as it attempted to navigate the changing supermarket landscape. Now, the company operates 13, with number 14 due to open soon and 15 in the works.
Founder Oral Edwards passed away in 2017, and Steve Edwards now serves as GES president. As Steve’s son, Steve Edwards Jr., and son-in-law, Paul Rowton, have come into the company, Proffitt’s role has evolved to allow for growth and flexibility.
“My job has become more defined over time. It had to, because we’ve got over 850 employees today,” Proffitt said. “Now, Paul is vice president and Steve Jr. oversees special projects.”
Proffitt describes his role in its current form as more top-down than front-line. That shift is a testament both to Edwards’ success and the responsibilities he’s been able to delegate to others. When the company initially expanded into Central Arkansas, Proffitt started adding merchandisers for various sections of the store, including deli/bakery, meat and produce, while maintaining his oversight of the grocery side. In the last year, those supervisors have turned into directors, with their own teams reporting to them about the state of the departments.
Whether it’s 50 people or 850, Proffitt’s approach to leadership hasn’t changed much. He prides himself on being inclusive and listening to his people, as well as giving clear directions so everyone knows exactly what’s expected of them.
When it comes to the stores themselves, his winning strategy is even simpler: “Full and clean. No matter where we operate, or what format it is, a clean, organized, well-stocked store wins.”
By far the most rewarding part of the job for Proffitt is successfully opening a new store. Every opening day is the culmination of his life’s work, and each location is built upon the hard-earned experience of the ones that came before.
“For the store we’re working on right now, the day before we open it and the three or four of us are walking through looking at it – it will be the best we’ve ever done,” Proffitt said. “Every one of them gets a little better. It is satisfying, too, for all the people in key positions who have had input into their departments.”
In preparation for the newest location, Proffitt interviewed one of the candidates for assistant manager for nearly two hours. The potential employee had decades of experience in the grocery business, so Proffitt wasn’t worried about his ability. Instead, Proffitt was concerned with making him understand one key thing about the job he was signing up for.
“I told him, probably about five times, ‘You just took the most satisfying job you’ll ever have,’” Proffitt said. “I could tell him that without a doubt.”
