New owners buy Billtown grocery store

By NICK VLAHOS
For The Weekly Post

WILLIAMSFIELD – Ladd’s Food Mart is staying, but Jerry Ladd isn’t.

After more than 44 years as owner of Williamsfield’s only grocery store, Ladd sold his business last month. The new proprietor is Pardeep Kumar, part of a family that owns food stores in Bushnell and Mason City.
“I want to go play golf where it’s warm,” said Ladd, who is approaching his 75th birthday.

Ladd hasn’t quite hit the links yet. He’s been helping at the store at 214 Illinois Route 180 until the new ownership is up to speed.

The point person for that effort is Harsh Puri, a 22-year-old nephew of Kumar. Puri has been making the 140-mile round trip from Mason City until a local house can be found for himself and for Kumar’s family, which includes three young children.

Puri’s father, Rocky Puri, has been the main grocer in the family. Kumar was in the trucking business before he shifted gears.

“We’re all from little towns, and we like to live in a little town, where everybody’s close to each other and knows each other well,” the younger Puri said last week. “It’s more safe to live in a little town than a bigger city. That’s why we looked for a store here.”

Ladd said he’s been open to offers for his store the past few years. Puri said his family contacted Ladd in December. The new owner plans to retain Ladd’s nine employees.

Kumar and Puri will oversee a business that was the last remaining piece of Ladd’s food mini-empire. Ladd’s father, Bill, owned a grocery in Yates City, a business Ladd joined in 1974. The Williamsfield location opened in 1978.

Ladd also has owned a bakery in Elmwood, a bar and grill in Williamsfield and a convenience store at the Oak Run development west of town. He resides in a house along the golf course there.

Puri said his family doesn’t plan to change much, including the store’s name. He has expanded some of the product lines, including liquor to complement the current beer-and-wine selection. Fried chicken to accompany Ladd’s existing made-in-store pizza also is possible.

But Ladd and Puri stressed a need for customer support – not just from Williamsfield but from nearby communities.

Small-community supermarkets are vanishing. One in the Henry County town of Annawan was expected to shutter at the end of January, according to WQAD-TV in Moline. Competition from chains and big-box stores in Peoria and Galesburg, among other places, can be stiff.

“Your major outfits, they saturate rural areas with advertising and cheap deals,” Ladd said. “People forget that until it’s gone, and they don’t realize how bad they need a grocery store in town.

“I can name you 12 towns around here that don’t have a grocery store anymore. And Dollar Generals are not a replacement.”

Puri said grocery freight costs have almost tripled in recent times. But he also suggested the supermarket is a form of public service, particularly for elderly residents who might not be able to travel much beyond Billtown.

“For now, I’ll probably have to pull money out of my pocket to run this place,” Puri said. “If we can keep it even, we’ll keep it running. … We want people to support local and make Williamsfield better.”

Puri’s approach appears to help make the sale easier for cancer-survivor Ladd and his wife, Lorraine. She helped with everything from bookkeeping to pizza preparation, according to her husband.

“I feel like I’m leaving it in good hands,” he said.