Feature
The Retail Apocalypse Can’t Keep Tractor Supply Co. Down
Brick and mortar is alive and well in the heartland.
(From left) Tractor Supply President Steve Barbarick and CEO Gregory Sandfort at a store in College Grove, Tenn.
Photographer: Caroline Tompkins for Bloomberg Businessweek
Some of the best retail theater in the world takes place far from the runways of Paris and the display windows of Fifth Avenue. Twice a year Tractor Supply Co., a chain of 1,900 stores scattered across rural America, trucks in millions of chirping chicks and herds them into pens. The little birds fetch $1.99 each, or $2.99 for those that have been “sexed.”
“Chickens, for us, have absolutely exploded,” says Steve Kinney, manager of 13 Tractor Supply locations.