| Type | Employee-Owned |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail (grocery) |
| Founded | Beaconsfield, Iowa, (1930) |
| Headquarters | West Des Moines, Iowa |
| Number of locations | 233 (August 2011)[1] |
| Key people | Randall Edeker, President, COO Ric Jurgens, Chairman and CEO Mike Skokan, CFO Ron Taylor, CAO |
| Products | Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, gas, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor |
| Revenue | $6.9 billion (2009)[2] |
| Employees | 58,000[2] |
| Website | hy-vee.com |
Hy-Vee ( /ˌhaɪˈviː/) is an employee-owned chain of supermarkets located in the Midwestern United States. Over 100 of its supermarkets are located in Iowa, with additional stores in Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and now Madison, Wisconsin. Hy-Vee also operates liquor stores under the names Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits.
Most Hy-Vee stores are full-service supermarkets with bakeries, delicatessens, banks, florists, pharmacies, and coffee shops (Caribou Coffee and Starbucks). Hy-Vee has also added gas stations with convenience stores to some of its properties. Customers are often given a discount of several cents per gallon of gas when their grocery receipt is shown; the discount can often run between three cents a gallon, to as much as sixteen cents a gallon, depending on the day.
Hy-Vee is known for its longtime advertising slogan, "Where there's a helpful smile in every aisle". The slogan was adopted for Hy-Vee's first television commercial in 1963. When the jingle became a full song in the '90s, its music was written by Annie Meacham and James Poulsen.
Two-time National Football League MVP and three-time Super Bowl player Kurt Warner once stocked shelves at a Hy-Vee store in Cedar Falls, Iowa. After being cut by the Green Bay Packers at age 24, he thought his football career might be over and worked there to cover bills. Actor Ashton Kutcher is also a former Hy-Vee employee.
Hy-Vee's largest store is located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which has over 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of retail space in the store.
The company was founded by Charles Hyde and David Vredenburg when they opened a general store in Beaconsfield, Iowa, in 1930. More stores were started, and in 1938, the company incorporated into Hyde & Vredenburg, Inc. Hyde & Vredenburg had 15 stores in Iowa and Missouri at that point. In 1945 Hyde & Vredenburg moved its corporate headquarters from Lamoni to Chariton, Iowa, after acquiring the Chariton Wholesale Company.
The Hy-Vee name, a contraction of Hyde and Vredenburg, was adopted in 1952 as the winning entry of an employee contest. The first store to open under the Hy-Vee name opened in Fairfield, Iowa, in 1953. The company's name was officially changed to Hy-Vee Food Stores, Inc., in 1963. In 1969 Hy-Vee expanded into Minnesota after acquiring the Swanson Stores chain based in Cherokee, Iowa. That year it opened its first Drug Town pharmacy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; in 2005 all Drug Town stores were renamed Hy-Vee Drugstores in order to reflect the relationship between the chain's pharmacies and supermarkets. [3]
Hy-Vee continued expanding during the 1970s and 1980s, opening stores in South Dakota (1975), Nebraska (1977), Illinois (1979), and Kansas (1988). Hy-Vee's 100th store, which was also its first to use electronic cash registers, opened in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1975. By the end of 1989 Hy-Vee had 172 stores in seven states.[4] In 1995 Hy-Vee moved its corporate headquarters from Chariton to its current home in West Des Moines, Iowa, while shortening its name to Hy-Vee, Inc. The company still has its primary distribution center in Chariton; a second distribution center is located in Cherokee, Iowa. Ironically, out of all metro areas in the state of Iowa, their headquarters of West Des Moines is one of their most hard-fought markets, where they compete with Dahl's Foods.
Hy-Vee purchased the naming rights to the Iowa Events Center's exhibition hall in 2001; Hy-Vee Hall was completed in December 2004. Hy-Vee also sponsors the annual Hy-Vee Triathlon; in 2011 it will serve as the U.S. Championship of World Triathlon Corporation’s 5150 Series. Hy-Vee also holds IronKids triathlons in 14 locations around the Midwest; in 2011, the Hy-Vee IronKids U.S. Championship will be held in West Des Moines.
It also sponsored the Legends Tour's Hy-Vee Classic golf tournament in Johnston, Iowa, from 2000 to 2006 before it discontinued the tournament in order to focus on the Hy-Vee Triathlon.[5] Hy-Vee has served as a sponsor of Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals since 2001, and in 2009 replaced Price Chopper as the official grocery store of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs.[6] Before and during the 2008 Summer Olympics, Hy-Vee ran a television ad featuring eventual gold medalist Shawn Johnson, who is from West Des Moines, where Hy-Vee is headquartered. Throughout its history Hy-Vee has branched out from its retail operations by acquiring several companies that provide services to its stores. Hy-Vee's non-retail subsidiaries are:
Hy-Vee Inc. employs over 55,000 individuals and is the largest employer in the state of Iowa. The company has annual sales of over $6.9 billion. In 2010, Hy-Vee ranked 41st on Forbes magazine's annual list of the largest privately owned companies in the United States.[2]
Shortly after same-sex marriage became legal in Iowa, Hy-Vee expanded their spousal benefits to include gay couples. The new policy was implemented on all Hy-Vee stores, even in states such as Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, and Missouri that do not protect gay individuals. This action has made Hy-Vee one of the most gay-friendly companies in the Midwest.[7]
On October 27, 2009, Hy-Vee opened its first Wisconsin store in Madison, its first LEED certified building.[8]