On the Right Side of Fresh

JEFF CADY, NORTHEAST SHARED SERVICES

Over four decades, Jeff Cady has turned produce know‑how into team‑first leadership, bold merchandising, and a mission to grow consumption.

There’s a tiny, yellowed newspaper clipping on the wall in Jeff Cady’s office. He’s looked at it for so many years, he can recite the quote from heart: “The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.”

The words of the 19th-century Swiss philosopher and poet Henri-Frédéric Amiel guide Cady in his 21st-century work as vice president of produce and floral for Northeast Shared Services, headquartered in Schenectady, NY. “If everybody’s trying to [have] everything be 100% perfect, you never move forward,” says Cady. “I look at that clipping all the time, and I actually point to it in meetings, and say, ‘I think we’re close enough. Let’s roll.’”

That willingness to move when the picture is only 90% clear is the same instinct behind what he calls “feel the fresh” — his belief that a produce department should look and feel abundantly fresh the moment a shopper turns the corner, even if that means accepting some shrink in the name of selection.

Cady, whose role at Northeast Shared Services supports the retail banners of Price Chopper, Market 32 and Tops Friendly Markets, earned the Produce Business 2026 Merchandiser of the Year award for his leadership and fresh produce business savvy.

And he links that quote’s philosophy to fresh produce’s undulating life cycle. “We’re in the produce business. Any mistake we make is gone in less than two weeks.”

That doesn’t mean he wants to make mistakes; it means his pragmatic, action-biased leadership is decisive, but not reckless, and he’s comfortable with learning quickly.

LIFELONG LEARNER

Cady has been attending the school of fresh produce ever since high school, when he got his first job in produce at a Giant Eagle store in northeastern Ohio.

“It took me by surprise,” he says of his slow, but steady, interest in produce. “I’m trimming lettuce and all the busy work of the department, and I just started thinking about the business of it. There was just always something to learn.”

“I really just wanted to continue to learn the business,” he says of his career path in fresh. “It’s not that I wasn’t interested in grocery, but the dynamic of produce? I was smart enough to realize this is truly unique. There’s always something challenging, and there’s always something to learn.”

After four years, he left Giant Eagle in 1990 and joined Finast/Pick-N-Pay, which became part of Tops Friendly Markets in 1996. At Tops, Cady held many store positions, including produce manager and assistant store manager, until corporate came calling in 2002, and he relocated from Ohio to Rochester, in western New York, as produce and floral field specialist.

That move was a turning point for Cady, as he went from one store to overseeing 20, then 40 locations. Now, in hindsight, he admits he’s not sure he was ready for that position. “I knew how to put a produce department together and build beautiful displays, but managing people? That’s where the rubber hits the road. I had to grow into it.”

And grow he did. In late 2008, he became a produce buyer/merchandiser, was promoted to produce and floral category manager in 2011, and then director of produce and floral in 2014. In 2022, Tops Friendly Markets promoted Cady to the position of vice president of produce and floral as part of the Shared Services Center.

“I’m still learning,” he says. “Every day, we learn how to lead.”

PRESENTATION = PROFITABILITY

Cady’s early merchandising lessons created the foundation for his accomplishments. As a young assistant produce manager, he and his Giant Eagle produce manager redesigned the department so successfully that their framework was rolled out in five stores then owned by the franchise.

“We set up the department to obviously merchandise it, but merchandise it for profitability,” he recalls. “It was really cool to get that piece of it behind me, the nuts and bolts of ‘how do you make money in produce.’”

“You start to understand, ‘Wow! If I do this, the customer reacts this way.’”

He built on that foundation by turning problems into merchandising opportunities, like when an order of tomatoes arrived as broccoflower instead. “You can either whine about it, or you can try to sell it, which is what I chose to do, asking, ‘how do we merchandise this and sell through it?’”

The mini-successes started building, and Cady realized there was more profitability leaning into merchandising, learning, “I can control sales by how I present things.”

At Finast, he became a meticulous display-builder, creating visual theater and triggering senses of smell. “We used to open escarole and endive to the heart of it, put it in water, and put radishes in the middle. And it just looked fabulous,” he says. “Customers responded, ‘Wow, this place is a picture. It should be in a magazine.’”

He paid more attention to what prompted customers’ actions, coupling creative merchandising with financial discipline. “Being privy to the numbers, you could obviously prove that out, right? I’m growing sales by doing this.”

But the ultimate “success” for Cady isn’t just sales, it’s sales that respect the product and satisfy the shopper.

SHRINK AND SELECTION

That customer lens, as well as his focus on presentation and profit, also shapes how Cady thinks about shrink. He’s the first to acknowledge that no one in the supply chain wants to lose product, but he also believes fresh produce operators can’t be paralyzed by fear of waste.

“Shrink is part of the upfront investment in driving fresh produce sales,” Cady stresses.

He pushes for smart decisions — repacking or cutting when it makes sense — but he won’t sacrifice abundance. “Shrink is part of doing business and taking care of the customer,” he says. “You’ve got to provide selection. You can have the three best‑looking peppers on the display, but if it’s meant to hold a hundred, people think that’s all that’s left.”

“We cannot be afraid to be aggressive — the more you put out, the more you sell.”

In his view, a produce department that doesn’t look full, colorful and inviting fails the “feel the fresh” test long before the shopper ever checks a price sign.

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC

So, which comes first, the merchandising or the customer? For Cady, it’s no question: the customer. And that laser focus on what shoppers want is what drives him, and pushes him to emphasize that focus on down to the store level.

“It’s not one conversation, it’s a culture that you create,” he says. “That culture of taking care of the customer, of being customer-centric. If you keep them in mind, you can solve for that.”

When he visits stores, he gives himself time to simply stand, watch, and listen in the produce department.

“I literally watch customers. That’s what I do. I’m looking at what they’re doing, looking at what they’re putting in their cart.”

But even before that, he wants to see if the produce department captivates all the senses. “I like to call it ‘feel the fresh.’ Do you emotionally connect with the department when you walk in?” And that involves merchandising, placement, colors and fresh, bulk products.

“I love to be able to see fresh, the art of fresh.”

For Cady, that customer focus is also about more than baskets and margins. He’s driven by a belief that produce is simply good for people. “I want to increase produce consumption,” he says. “I’m not pushing anything that’s bad for you. I believe in what I do — it’s the right thing. We are on the right side of everything.”

Beyond what he sees in stores, Cady soaks up signals from everywhere — internal data, trade publications, industry webinars, and even TikTok and Instagram. He scrolls social feeds at night to watch how consumers talk about food, and he listens closely to the Millennials and Gen Zers on his own team describe how they shop for their families.

“I use all the sources,” he says. “Data, magazines, social media, web­inars — and then I just listen to people. People will tell you a lot.”

INSPIRING AND EQUIPPING

Cady has been influenced by many people throughout his career, including people who might not even realize their impact, like Paul Kneeland, retail veteran and current vice president of sales at Elevated Foods. “I’ve never worked with him, but when I look at him, the way he presents himself, and what he’s done for the industry, I learn a lot from him from afar.”

Steve Wright, vice president of sales at JP Sullivan & Co., whom Cady succeeded as Tops’ director of produce and floral in 2014, also played a key role in Cady’s management development. “He had a fabulous leadership style, and was just so good at what he did, not just from a produce perspective, but with people, and building my knowledge of the procurement and vendor side.”

Cady’s leadership focus now is on inspiring and equipping others, and not doing everything himself. “I’m in the last quarter of my career, and I’m really trying to pass along everything I know to everyone who works with me — and these people work ‘with’ me; they don’t work ‘for’ me. We all have a role to play.”

“Nothing gets done without a team,” he stresses. “People make you great.”

Cady says he learned as much about what not to do from some leaders in the 1990s as what to emulate. Earlier in his career, he admits he sometimes tried to transfer his own sense of urgency onto others.

“I think creating stress in people to get results is the wrong play,” he reflects. “The job is stressful enough. Your job as a leader is not to do that.”

If he could talk to his 20‑year‑old self, he’d say, “Jeff, chill out. You can get a better result — or the same result — without stressing people out.”

The shift from “doing” to coaching and enabling is not easy, but it’s intentional, and he lets people try their ideas, even if he might choose differently. “At first, I was constantly trying to explain to people why I see things the way I do, and to get them to align with me,” says Cady. “But then I realized that’s not really fair. My job as a leader is to give people the latitude to do the things that they need to do.”

That humility and team mindset has always been a part of Cady’s style, one he’s hoping transfers to those around him.

“I’m a leader of all these folks now. People are watching me, but I really have to make sure that I instill how I got here,” he says. “I lead by example. I lead by how I walk, and how I talk.”

Looking ahead, Cady is clear about the legacy he hopes to leave. If his grandchildren read about him 20 years from now, he wants them to understand that he stood for the produce industry — from growers to retailers to consumers.

“I tried to touch every part of it to make it better,” he says. “You’re not living for today. I’ve always been aware this is a minute in the long haul. I’ve just got to do my part and pass it along.”