CHICAGO -- Donald S. Perkins, former CEO of Jewel Cos. and the pioneer of the dual grocery retailer-drugstore format who also oversaw the launch in 1965 of the White Hen Pantry convenience-store chain, has died at age 88 on March 25, reported The Chicago Tribune.
Perkins was raised in St. Louis by his mother. He won a scholarship to Yale, finishing a bachelor's degree in 1949 during studies interrupted by a hitch in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Two years later he earned a master's degree in business from the Harvard Organization College.
He served for two years in the Air Force during the Korean War. He was recruited by Jewel in September 1953 right after his mother-in-law told the grocery chain's chairman about him at a cocktail celebration. He started out working on a truck route in California before moving to the Chicago area, where he became the route business's main buyer.
Perkins rapidly rose within Jewel, becoming executive vice president in 1960 and president and COO at the end of 1964. In 1970 he was named Jewel's chairman and CEO.
During his years at Jewel, Perkins helped set in motion plans to broaden Jewel from a grocery chain into a diversified retailer. He was involved in several acquisitions, including Osco Drug in 1961, Star Market place in 1964 and Buttrey in 1966. He oversaw the launch in 1965 of White Hen Pantry and led Jewel's 1980 acquisition of Sav-on Drugs.
He strongly championed the concept of combined grocery-drug stores that Chicagoans came to know as Jewel-Osco.
"That became an extremely potent engine for Jewel," former Jewel Chairman and CEO Richard G. Cline told the newspaper. "The trade term was 'combo shops,' and it was a great strength of Jewel. It was a kind of convenience retailing where a consumer could get a lot done in one visit. There was a wonderful degree of complementarity of people today buying for food and persons buying for merchandise--not only drugs and cosmetics but certain products and general merchandise and in particular, seasonal items."
"We're continuing to emphasize bigger stores offering additional diverse merchandise," Mr. Perkins told the Tribune in 1973. "We're not store developers as such, but location developers. What we're doing, of course, is making many of our own stores obsolete by comparison. But we would rather do that to ourselves than have the competition do it for us."
Perkins oversaw many thriving efforts to differentiate Jewel's merchandise, including unit pricing and open dating of perishable items. Jewel also was the first grocer to provide generic foods, the report said. White Hen Pantry was founded by Jewel Tea Co. as Kwik Shoppe and began franchising in July 1965, borrowing the idea from 7-Eleven. The first location was in Des Plaines, Ill. A few months later, it adopted the White Hen Pantry name, taken from Jewel's egg supplier, White Hen Egg Farms. After American Stores purchased Jewel in 1984, White Hen Pantry was sold to its management team and became an independent company. In 2001 it was sold to Clark Retail Enterprises, Inc., which sold all 55 White Hen Pantry stores in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to New England Pantry Inc.
Seven & i Holdings Co. acquired White Hen in August 2006 and eventually rebranded them all as 7-Eleven.
Perkins' first wife, Phyllis, died in 1983. He is survived by his second wife, Jane; two daughters, a stepson, a stepdaughter, a brother, a sister, seven grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
CSP sends condolences to his family, his friends and his colleagues.
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