Garry Bergstrom has never been particularly comfortable with titles. Even after a 45-year career at Publix Super Markets, even after rising to business director of produce and floral, even now as he prepares to receive the Southeast Produce Council’s highest honor Bergstrom still describes himself the same way he always has: a farm boy who tries to do the right thing.

That posture, service-oriented and quietly principled, is precisely why the Southeast Produce Council has selected Bergstrom as the 2026 recipient of the Terry Vorhees Lifetime Achievement Award, to be presented during Southern Exposure in Orlando. To those who know him, the recognition feels less like a capstone and more like a reflection of a life lived consistently, both in and beyond the produce industry.

“It is a privilege to recognize Garry for his outstanding lifetime achievement in the produce industry,” said Curt Epperson, director of produce and floral, Publix Super Markets. “From the very beginning of his career, Garry consistently demonstrated unwavering dedication, passion and loyalty. His commitment to excellence and drive to improve the organization has no doubt left a lasting impact.”

Roots in responsibility 
Bergstrom grew up in Eagle Bend, MN, one of six children on a 400-acre dairy farm where responsibility wasn’t theoretical, it was physical. By the time he was 6 or 7, he was already driving large diesel tractors, pulling equipment and mowing hay. On that farm, he learned early that work wasn’t optional and that the day didn’t end just because you were tired. “It wasn’t playtime,” Bergstrom told The Produce News. “It was serious business.”

Those lessons were reinforced when Bergstrom was 13 and his father made the difficult decision to sell the dairy and enter the ministry. With five children still at home, his father returned to school, earned his doctorate and later became a Baptist pastor; a transition that took the family from rural Minnesota to Florida for seminary. Bergstrom said the move was not easy at first.

“I was angry,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave the farm. I didn’t want to leave my family — my cousins, my grandparents, everybody. It wasn’t really about Florida. I just didn’t want to leave the dairy.” 

Over time, however, the experience instilled in him a deeper understanding of faith lived through service, work done with humility and the reality that calling often requires sacrifice. “My dad felt called,” Bergstrom said. “He sold the dairy with five kids at home and went back to school.”

An unexpected doorway into produce
As a young man, Bergstrom imagined a different future. He loved science, enjoyed working with children and thought he might pursue medicine, possibly becoming a pediatrician. But college brought practical constraints: lab schedules conflicted with work, money was tight and, at 18, Bergstrom made a decision that quietly redirected his life.

Driving down the road one evening, Bergstrom said he noticed a Publix store with its lights on and decided to stop in. “I didn’t even know what a Publix was,” he confessed. “I went inside and told the store manager I needed a job.” When the manager asked why he should hire him, Bergstrom kept it simple. “I told him I worked on a dairy farm, so I know how to work hard. He said, ‘Be here tomorrow morning at 7 o’clock.’” Bergstrom showed up the next morning and was put to work in the produce department.

Almost immediately, he said, the work felt right. “I just loved it, I loved working with people — helping customers pick out fruit, helping them make selections.” That connection extended beyond the department itself. Bergstrom said he quickly grew attached to Publix Super Markets: its culture, its expectations and the way it invested in people. “They kind of put their arms around me and made me feel like I was important, like I was part of something important.”

When the opportunity came to take a full-time role with benefits, Bergstrom chose to stay rather than return to school. Looking back, he doesn’t frame the decision as strategic. “I don’t believe in coincidence,” he said. “That’s just how it happened.”

Patience and vision
Around that same period, Bergstrom met his future wife, Ginny, during a church haunted house event. “It wasn’t even a real date,” he said. “We just ended up together that night.” Within weeks, the relationship moved quickly. Two weeks after they first went out, Bergstrom told her he loved her. A week later, he proposed. “Three weeks,” he said, laughing. “We were engaged. And three months after that, we were married.” This year, the couple celebrated 52 years of marriage.

Early in their marriage, Bergstrom said he felt it was important to be honest about what his work life would look like — and what he hoped it might become. “I sat her down and told her how retail worked,” he said. “That I’d be working holidays, working Saturdays, that it wasn’t an eight-to-five job.” He shared a vision that, at the time, was more faith than foresight. “I told her I was going to be a produce manager, then a merchandiser, then a buyer — and one day, I’d be in charge of all the produce at Publix,” Bergstrom told her. 

“I was 19 years old,” Bergstrom said. “I didn’t know anything.” He said Ginny listened as he laid it all out — the long hours, the weekends, the improbable career plan — and didn’t hesitate. “She just said, ‘Okay, that sounds good to me,’” he recalled. “Not once, in 45 years, did she ever complain.”

Over the next four decades, Bergstrom followed that path almost exactly — not through impatience or ambition, he said, but through steady work, patience and the quiet confidence of having someone beside him who understood the demands of the job and stood behind the commitment they made together.

Leadership shaped by family
Family was never peripheral to Bergstrom’s career, it was central. When his oldest son began playing sports, Bergstrom said he went straight to his store manager and made his priorities clear. “‘My son’s playing sports now and they play on Saturdays,’” he told him, “I’ll come in early, I’ll stay late, I’ll do whatever I need to do, but I’m going to the games.’”

He said he didn’t ask permission; he simply told his manager what mattered and committed to taking care of the work. The response stayed with him. “He just said, ‘Garry, you take care of the business, take care of your family, and we’ll be fine,’” Bergstrom recalled. For Bergstrom, it became a lasting reminder that leadership, at its best, could make room for both responsibility and humanity.

Today, Bergstrom and Ginny have three children, nine grandchildren and a great-grandchild. He credits Ginny with nurturing those relationships during years when his job demanded long hours, noting that while he worked hard, home was always home. “We’re very close,” he said. “We’re so blessed.”

A reputation built on character
As Bergstrom rose through the organization, becoming produce director in 1999 and later business director of produce and floral, his leadership style never changed. “He didn’t say a lot,” said David Sherrod, president and CEO of the Southeast Produce Council, “but when he did say something, you’d better listen.”

Sherrod said Bergstrom has a rare ability to absorb every angle of a discussion before distilling complex issues down to their fundamentals. “He can take something complicated and break it down,” Sherrod said, “then help you build it back up the right way.”
“He always looked at things from a 360-degree view,” added Raina Nelson, CEO of Westfalia Fruit, who first met Bergstrom early in her career while calling on Publix. She remembers him as quiet at first, then deeply engaged, asking thoughtful questions that revealed his command of the business. “Sometimes he’d even invert the problem and ask you to see it from the opposite angle.” 

After Bergstrom retired, Nelson said she came to know him beyond the buyer role as a family man, a man of faith and someone who consistently brought a wide-angle lens to leadership conversations. That perspective, she said, made him especially valuable in SEPC council settings, helping leaders recognize not just what they wanted to do next, but what they might be missing. 

During his career, that approach showed up in moments both strategic and practical. Sherrod recalled an early buy-one-get-one promotion on Apio broccoli florets that took off faster than anyone anticipated. “We had planned it for four weeks,” Sherrod said. “It started moving so fast we almost broke the supply chain. We had trucks backed up down the road.”

As the pressure mounted, Sherrod said he eventually called Bergstrom to pull the final week of the promotion. “I finally said, ‘Uncle,’” he recalled. “I told Garry we had to stop it.” According to Sherrod, Bergstrom didn’t push back or deflect blame. “He listened, he understood the situation, respected the call and helped us work through it.” The outcome, Sherrod said, became a lesson that stuck. “Sales jumped 17 percent and stayed elevated after that. He understood how to get product into customers’ hands. He trusted the consumer.”

Andy Cowart, produce retail coordinator for Publix Super Markets, said Bergstrom’s influence inside the company remains visible. “The vision he had for the produce department at Publix was incredible,” Cowart said. “Even now, years after he stepped away, his fingerprints are still all over the way we operate.”

“Most of the time you consider what someone might’ve done if they hadn’t chosen a certain career,” Cowart reflected. “With Garry, I wonder what the rest of us would’ve done if he hadn’t been here. He impacted so many people, gave them opportunities, developed so many people into leaders, and those leaders developed others. That impact keeps spreading.”

Bobby Creel, director of business development for L&M Cos., has known Bergstrom for more than 30 years and describes his leadership in simple terms. “He was pragmatic,” Creel said. “Very deliberate. Very analytical, and honest as the day is long.”
Asked to describe Bergstrom in one word, Creel didn’t hesitate: “Honest.” He said Bergstrom never chased recognition, but he consistently earned trust — from growers, suppliers and peers alike by caring deeply about doing things the right way and treating people with respect.

A life of service
Bergstrom often says he has always been in the people business, he just happened to work in produce. “We’re here to serve,” he said. “Not to be served.” It’s a belief shaped by faith, family and decades of lived experience, one that guided his decisions at Publix and continues to define his relationships today.

In retirement, Bergstrom and Ginny remain active, traveling by RV and building a family gathering place in Tennessee; a home designed not for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren. As he prepared to receive the Terry Vorhees Lifetime Achievement Award, Bergstrom remained characteristically humble. “I never thought of myself as a business director,” he said. “I’m still that farm boy, just trying to do the right thing.”