Kroger Co. said Tuesday that Jay Cummins has been named president of the Smith’s Food & Drug Stores division, and Joe Fey has been named to succeed him as president of Kroger’s Mid-Atlantic division.
Cummins, 62, succeeds Mark Tuffin, who had been named SVP of retail divisions at Kroger in December. Cummins began his Kroger career in 1972 as a clerk in Huntington, Beach, Calif., and later had management and merchandising roles in Kroger’s Food 4 Less division. In 2002, he was named VP and general manager at the Food 4 Less Midwest division, where he led the expansion of the price-impact format in the Chicago area. He was named president of Food 4 Less in 2004 and president of the Mid-Atlantic division in 2007.
Fey, 59, has president of the company’s QFC division in the Pacific Northwest. He began his career as a meat clerk with Kroger in 1972 while in college. He was promoted to a variety of leadership positions in management and merchandising in the company’s Central division and corporate office in Cincinnati. In 1999, Fey was named VP of merchandising for the Dillons division. He was named VP of merchandising for the Michigan Division in 2008, before being named president of QFC in 2011.
