Summary
Hy-Vee was presented the 2006 Salute to Excellence Award for the Supermarket category at the recent PLMA Show in Chicago. Why Hy-Vee? The numbers can speak for themselves in answering why they would be selected and highlighted. And perhaps these are reasons enough. Hy-Vee’s sheer size and geographic concentration allows them to focus their efforts. Aligning with Topco, the nation’s largest buying cooperative, and with Daymon, the nation’s largest private brand broker, allows them to be much bigger than they would be alone and gives them both the clout and the information base to continue getting bigger. Both Topco and Daymon allow Hy-Vee a view into the larger world and to have close relationships with like-minded retailers elsewhere.
Ownership of the employees, by the employees and for the employees, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln’s quote. Hy-Vee is an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) retailer. That’s not very common in today’s world of big business, takeovers and mergers. It does represent the vision of Hy-Vee’s early management, however, who wanted to have a structure that would transcend their leadership tenure and that would set the foundation for a retail structure that could forever remain close to the customer.
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