August 19, 2025 • 8 mins
Josh Harpole is the new president of Kroger's Louisville division, moving around town meeting folks. He talked about Kroger's legacy, service, workforce, and community gifts to uplift.
Welcome to Louisville, Josh!
Welcome to Louisville, Josh!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your news RADIOA forty whas Terry miners here. Josh Harpole
is the new president of Kroger's Louisville division. It is
great to have you in a studio with me.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I am thrilled to be here, and I've been on
the job two weeks and one day.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Two weeks in one day is beautiful. I'm glad you're
getting out and meeting people. I was just saying that
John Hackett actually contacted me and told me he's a
buddy mine who had your job some years ago. But
this is a heck of a huge Kroger footprint around here,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Absolutely. The division office is actually located right here in Louisville,
and we have one hundred and fifteen stores in the Kentucky,
Southern Indiana and southern Illinois area. We have a warehouse here,
a distribution center, and a home delivery facility as well.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So he is a big part of our business.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I do see the Kroger trucks that are getting out
in the neighborhoods and delivering.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Absolutely, And we have five thousand associates here locally too
in Kentuckyana, which is awesome. And then we have fourteen
thousand amazing associates across Kentucky as well.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh that's pretty incredible. So just like me when I
was in college, I was I was on a processing
crew breaking down the trucks. The truck would back up
to the dock, two other guys and I would greet
the guy, the driver get out of there, and we
just we go through that as fast as we could.
Because you guys were paying us for six hours, it
didn't matter how long it took us. It usually took
us about four because we hustled.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You were fast. It was me eight hours my team
back in the day.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
That was a great job though, to get to unload
a truck and get it all ready, you know, get
it on a little car so people could put it
out there. What was your first job.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I was a bagger thirty one years ago in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And did you have the courage to say hello to people?
Because that's hard for a teenager.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Absolutely. I liked getting out in front of them.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I loved taking their groceries to their car and helping
them put the bags away.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Have you heard from anybody that was working with you
in the early days and said, wait a minute, you're
a president in this company now.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I just got an email from one today saying, really,
I saw you in a Lituisville Cardinal shirt today.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I thought you were a Broncos fan.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Things are going to work out for the Broncos eventually,
right eventually. Yes, yeah, because you're a Coloradoer as a kid.
So you had Elway, you had some good runs. Yeah,
that's right in Manning. Yes, you can't complain about your
football history.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
There I complain, but I am a Cards fan through
and through here in Louis vovent around for six years here.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Fantastic, all right. So Kroger's mothership is Cincinnati, but this
is a huge division.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Here, absolutely, and we've been here for over ninety five years.
We had our first store here, so it is a
big division for us, an important division, and we've been
a part of the community for a very very long time.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
One of the guys we called on the processing crew,
we called him Barney Kroger because he was all about
the rules. Was that the name of the founder.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That was the name back in eighteen eighty three. So
he started with a wagon.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
There really was a Barney Kroger. That's good to n Yes,
but that guy wasn't called that in vain of course.
So yeah, Kroger, it keeps spreading another news stores. I
saw there's one, isn't there one near Churchill Downs or something?
So you're still new ones.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
We continue to invest in the community, open new stores,
remodel stores. But being a part of the community and
the hometown grocer is really what we want to be
known for. As being a part of the community. We
work with nonprofits like Dare to Care Good. We actually
had five million dollars that we've provided to nonprofits this year.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, that feels good.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It feels great.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
That's a good thing that you do that So There
to Care obviously helps folks that are that are that
can't get to groceries.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And yeah, we want to end hunger in all the
communities that we serve, so through our zero Hunger, zero
waste program.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's fantastic. It's good you do that. I know, we uh,
we've you guys have helped us with a crusade for
children for so many years too, and that's greatly appreciated.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
We appreciate the partnership as well.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No doubt about that. So Kroger continues growing. We know
it's a changing universe in the grocery world. Now there's
so many other people trying to get a bite out
of the apple. What keep you on top.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's a tough competitive market, but we have low prices.
But our people are great and so we have great
people with low prices, great products, fresh foods. So we're fresh,
friendly and full and we really want to serve our
communities and do a great job for our customers. This
is where we live, this is where our families are,
this is where our friends are, and we want to
(04:22):
provide the best shopping experience.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
For our cust what's changing in the environment or people
buying more organic food or they do what's happening? What
have you seen change in the last decade? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Absolutely, people care a lot about their health. So we
have a great brand called Simple Truth, which is across
the entire store, which is natural and organic products, whether
it's produce, meat. We want to have fresh, quality products
for our customers.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
All right, and as far as like getting produced in
all this talk about you know this this part of
the country is having trouble with their logistics or whatever.
You guys, how have our our.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Own local warehouse here and distributed distribution center, so we
deliver all of our products from our local warehouse here
in Louisville, and our division office is home right here
in Louisville as well. So one hundred and fifteen stores
serving southern Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, my dad was one of those drivers for decades.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That is awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, he had he had a great time. He would
run like a load of milk to Owensboro, come back.
Then he'd take a load of something rather than Carrollton
and come back all in one shift.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well, thank him for service.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. It's just you know,
everybody in our family worked for Kroger at one time
or no. That's why it's always funny. I had the
late night job. My brother worked in You guys used
to have a warehouse out here where the airport is,
and my brother worked in there and he got big
time money out there. That's just how that goes. And
then others were cashiers and greeters and what is it
(05:53):
about people that won't put carts back in the in
the corral? Have you seen the guy on TikTok that
goes up to people and tells you need to put
that back in the corral. It's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
We have courtesy clerks, which was my first job out
there all the time trying to clean up the lot
for people.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
But yes, please put your cards away.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But people will say to me, well they'll leave it
there because I've said some of the people before, and
they'll say they pay people to come get these cards.
It's like, yeah, but it's bumping into people's cars.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Absolutely, we don't want any buggy damage out.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
No, no, we don't need any of that. You have
to change those every so often, too, don't you.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Absolutely, we have to change the wheels, update the cars.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I see that out there, and then occasionally somebody walks
away with one of those. You haven't figured out a
system that just locks them up before they leave the
parking lot.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Right, We actually have.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
A little bit of everything, yes, sir, all right, Well,
Kroger is growing throughout this Louisville division.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Absolutely, we continue to grow. It's a great market for us,
a great community. We love our customers and we love
our associates. So I do want to say thank you
to everybody that is a customer of Kroger and all
of our associates out there listening.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, Well, a lot of people say they can't find
workers these days either, So what's happening job wise?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Actually, we're doing pretty well with that, and we actually
raised our wages and we just did that in West
Louisville and one of our stores we invested over five
hundred thousand a year in wages just recently.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so you're in every neighborhood, right, We.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Are in every neighborhood. We have two stores in West Louisville,
and we continue to grow in the market.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
All right, Well, it's good to meet you. I'm glad
you dropped by here. I know you were staying hi
to folks, and I appreciate you giving me a couple
of minutes on here.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Well, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
No doubt about it, Josh Harpole. And I'm sure that
if customers need you, they'll find a way to get
what an email to you is that how they do it.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Email would be great.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I love talking to our customers and you'll see me
in the stores as well.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Welcome to Louisville.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
You're gonna like this neighborhood. You're not going to leave
this one.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I'm planning to stay.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, you can watch Denver Broncos games on satellite, so
that works all right. Back in a minute on news radio.
Wait forty whas
Your news RADIOA forty whas Terry miners here. Josh Harpole
is the new president of Kroger's Louisville division. It is
great to have you in a studio with me.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I am thrilled to be here, and I've been on
the job two weeks and one day.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Two weeks in one day is beautiful. I'm glad you're
getting out and meeting people. I was just saying that
John Hackett actually contacted me and told me he's a
buddy mine who had your job some years ago. But
this is a heck of a huge Kroger footprint around here,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Absolutely. The division office is actually located right here in Louisville,
and we have one hundred and fifteen stores in the Kentucky,
Southern Indiana and southern Illinois area. We have a warehouse here,
a distribution center, and a home delivery facility as well.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
So he is a big part of our business.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I do see the Kroger trucks that are getting out
in the neighborhoods and delivering.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Absolutely, And we have five thousand associates here locally too
in Kentuckyana, which is awesome. And then we have fourteen
thousand amazing associates across Kentucky as well.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh that's pretty incredible. So just like me when I
was in college, I was I was on a processing
crew breaking down the trucks. The truck would back up
to the dock, two other guys and I would greet
the guy, the driver get out of there, and we
just we go through that as fast as we could.
Because you guys were paying us for six hours, it
didn't matter how long it took us. It usually took
us about four because we hustled.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
You were fast. It was me eight hours my team
back in the day.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
That was a great job though, to get to unload
a truck and get it all ready, you know, get
it on a little car so people could put it
out there. What was your first job.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I was a bagger thirty one years ago in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And did you have the courage to say hello to people?
Because that's hard for a teenager.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Absolutely. I liked getting out in front of them.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I loved taking their groceries to their car and helping
them put the bags away.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Have you heard from anybody that was working with you
in the early days and said, wait a minute, you're
a president in this company now.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I just got an email from one today saying, really,
I saw you in a Lituisville Cardinal shirt today.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I thought you were a Broncos fan.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Things are going to work out for the Broncos eventually,
right eventually. Yes, yeah, because you're a Coloradoer as a kid.
So you had Elway, you had some good runs. Yeah,
that's right in Manning. Yes, you can't complain about your
football history.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
There I complain, but I am a Cards fan through
and through here in Louis vovent around for six years here.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Fantastic, all right. So Kroger's mothership is Cincinnati, but this
is a huge division.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Here, absolutely, and we've been here for over ninety five years.
We had our first store here, so it is a
big division for us, an important division, and we've been
a part of the community for a very very long time.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
One of the guys we called on the processing crew,
we called him Barney Kroger because he was all about
the rules. Was that the name of the founder.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That was the name back in eighteen eighty three. So
he started with a wagon.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
There really was a Barney Kroger. That's good to n Yes,
but that guy wasn't called that in vain of course.
So yeah, Kroger, it keeps spreading another news stores. I
saw there's one, isn't there one near Churchill Downs or something?
So you're still new ones.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
We continue to invest in the community, open new stores,
remodel stores. But being a part of the community and
the hometown grocer is really what we want to be
known for. As being a part of the community. We
work with nonprofits like Dare to Care Good. We actually
had five million dollars that we've provided to nonprofits this year.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, that feels good.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It feels great.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
That's a good thing that you do that So There
to Care obviously helps folks that are that are that
can't get to groceries.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And yeah, we want to end hunger in all the
communities that we serve, so through our zero Hunger, zero
waste program.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's fantastic. It's good you do that. I know, we uh,
we've you guys have helped us with a crusade for
children for so many years too, and that's greatly appreciated.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
We appreciate the partnership as well.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No doubt about that. So Kroger continues growing. We know
it's a changing universe in the grocery world. Now there's
so many other people trying to get a bite out
of the apple. What keep you on top.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's a tough competitive market, but we have low prices.
But our people are great and so we have great
people with low prices, great products, fresh foods. So we're fresh,
friendly and full and we really want to serve our
communities and do a great job for our customers. This
is where we live, this is where our families are,
this is where our friends are, and we want to
(04:22):
provide the best shopping experience.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
For our cust what's changing in the environment or people
buying more organic food or they do what's happening? What
have you seen change in the last decade? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Absolutely, people care a lot about their health. So we
have a great brand called Simple Truth, which is across
the entire store, which is natural and organic products, whether
it's produce, meat. We want to have fresh, quality products
for our customers.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
All right, and as far as like getting produced in
all this talk about you know this this part of
the country is having trouble with their logistics or whatever.
You guys, how have our our.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Own local warehouse here and distributed distribution center, so we
deliver all of our products from our local warehouse here
in Louisville, and our division office is home right here
in Louisville as well. So one hundred and fifteen stores
serving southern Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, my dad was one of those drivers for decades.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That is awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, he had he had a great time. He would
run like a load of milk to Owensboro, come back.
Then he'd take a load of something rather than Carrollton
and come back all in one shift.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well, thank him for service.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. It's just you know,
everybody in our family worked for Kroger at one time
or no. That's why it's always funny. I had the
late night job. My brother worked in You guys used
to have a warehouse out here where the airport is,
and my brother worked in there and he got big
time money out there. That's just how that goes. And
then others were cashiers and greeters and what is it
(05:53):
about people that won't put carts back in the in
the corral? Have you seen the guy on TikTok that
goes up to people and tells you need to put
that back in the corral. It's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
We have courtesy clerks, which was my first job out
there all the time trying to clean up the lot
for people.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
But yes, please put your cards away.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But people will say to me, well they'll leave it
there because I've said some of the people before, and
they'll say they pay people to come get these cards.
It's like, yeah, but it's bumping into people's cars.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Absolutely, we don't want any buggy damage out.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
No, no, we don't need any of that. You have
to change those every so often, too, don't you.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Absolutely, we have to change the wheels, update the cars.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I see that out there, and then occasionally somebody walks
away with one of those. You haven't figured out a
system that just locks them up before they leave the
parking lot.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Right, We actually have.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
A little bit of everything, yes, sir, all right, Well,
Kroger is growing throughout this Louisville division.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Absolutely, we continue to grow. It's a great market for us,
a great community. We love our customers and we love
our associates. So I do want to say thank you
to everybody that is a customer of Kroger and all
of our associates out there listening.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, Well, a lot of people say they can't find
workers these days either, So what's happening job wise?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Actually, we're doing pretty well with that, and we actually
raised our wages and we just did that in West
Louisville and one of our stores we invested over five
hundred thousand a year in wages just recently.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so you're in every neighborhood, right, We.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Are in every neighborhood. We have two stores in West Louisville,
and we continue to grow in the market.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
All right, Well, it's good to meet you. I'm glad
you dropped by here. I know you were staying hi
to folks, and I appreciate you giving me a couple
of minutes on here.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Well, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
No doubt about it, Josh Harpole. And I'm sure that
if customers need you, they'll find a way to get
what an email to you is that how they do it.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Email would be great.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I love talking to our customers and you'll see me
in the stores as well.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Welcome to Louisville.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
You're gonna like this neighborhood. You're not going to leave
this one.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I'm planning to stay.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, you can watch Denver Broncos games on satellite, so
that works all right. Back in a minute on news radio.
Wait forty whas
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