Joe Hall (1946 – 1964) CEO

            Hall was not always a grocer man. He worked in real estate after graduating from the University of Chicago. He worked as the assistant manager for the real estate department of the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Company. He left the company in 1931 to join Kroger as the general manager of the real estate program Kroger had developed to find cheap, suitable and profitable real estate to place a supermarket.

            After completing his first assignment of ridding the company of any unfavorable leases, Hall’s interest turned to toward the main business of the company; groceries. According to a Business Week article from November 1946 “Four years after joining Kroger [he] turned himself into a store clerk, sorted potatoes, trimmed lettuce, swept floors, learned his way up to be manager."

            After a long succession of promotions, from store manager to district manager to vice president of manufacturing, Hall finally reached Cincinnati in 1942 after a promotion. And while in Cincinnati, Hall made big changes to the Kroger Company.

            First, Hall led the company territorially. He acquired real estate and land all around the country and began to expand the Kroger empire. Second, he pushed diversity upon the company. Hall is the reason Kroger has a pharmacy. He found a small firm in New Jersey, SuperX, that fit the model of pharmacy he wanted. Hall bought out the firm and placed the first pharmacies to ever be in a grocery store.

Hall also diversified so much that Kroger had the world’s largest egg producing facility in the world. He led Kroger to expand their poultry business, their fryer line, their dairy products, their ice cream factories and bakery products. He expanded the company in any way he could.

            Third, Hall made big changes to the board of directors. He replaced the affluent, top executives of Cincinnati firms with executives from all across America and academia men, most notably John Baker, then president of Ohio University.

            The final change Hall made as president of the company was to change the name of the company from The Kroger Grocery and Baking Company to what it is known as today; The Kroger Company. The 45 separate private-label brands were merged into one all encompassing Kroger brand.

            And just as all the men who came before him at Kroger, Hall was strict with his employees, calling for the utmost respect and drive anyone could demand. He ran the company with a firm grasp on all the finances, manufacturing and daily activities running through him.

            But the finest quality he had in common with the CEO’s before him; his willingness to help others. Hall was engaged in many different charitable acts, ranging form setting up funds to grow cheaper fruit in third world countries to helping out financial strapped people get back on their feet.

            After his death on June 3, 1978, an editorial on Hall’s death in the Enquirer on June 7, 1978, said he will be "remembered as one of Cincinnati's most energetic, most productive and most highly valued citizens."