Rendered at 00:21:40 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
1659447091 1 days ago [-]
There are lots feel-good things to say about how HEB runs its business and what it does for the communities and local areas they are in. Not to mention their "generic" store branded foods are usually healthier and made with simple ingredients. And locally sourced.
But this story[0] is the one that I think sums up the love people have for HEB pretty well. During the 2021 "Great Texas Freeze" [1] (where 4+million homes went without power for days, 10+million without safe drinking water and 200+ died); basically during a rush to stock up on food, the power went out at an HEB and they couldnt check anyone out, but instead of telling everyone to leave their carts and exit to go home without food, they let them all to walk out with whatever they had in their carts.
It's unfortunate that more big businesses don't even try to be a net positive the way HEB does. (some seem to be actively hostile to the idea)
> When it was their turn at the register, the Hennessys started loading their groceries on the conveyor belt but were told to put the groceries back in the cart. The woman at the register asked if they had alcohol. They didn’t. Then she waved them toward the exits.
> “Go home and be safe,” she said.
userbinator 21 hours ago [-]
If they're not constantly plagued by theft, they can definitely afford a one-time loss, especially for the free marketing and publicity.
userbinator 18 hours ago [-]
Care to state your disagreement?
userbinator 4 hours ago [-]
Apparently not. Go ahead and downvote all you want, the truth doesn't listen to you.
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
As soon as Covid was viewed as a serious threat in the US, they immediately put up plexiglass barriers to protect their cashiers. Immediately and not just half assed barriers. They did as good of a job as I would have done if I were the cashier. Then they transformed their stores to have more warehouse space and ran a free curbside pickup service. All of this and they are still the best grocery store in TX if you care about prices and wide selection of products.
The history of HEB is something I want to learn about. I know from reading Robert Caros LBJ volumes that Howard Butt was funneling a lot of money to LBJ staring in the 30s or 40s. Not to judge that, I’m just curious how they dominated Texas.
criddell 23 hours ago [-]
H-E-B stared preparing for the pandemic some time before it started. Texas Monthly wrote about it and I thought it was pretty interesting:
> The grocer started communicating with Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.)
nerdsniper 14 hours ago [-]
Before they put up plexiglass they announced that they would fire any staff members who wore a mask to work. Later they mandated masks.
arcticfox 10 hours ago [-]
Tbf, I recall the official guidance being a complete mess for a period. I recall feeling satisfied at not wearing a mask to comply with official guidance for a (short) period. Then the guidance changed.
nerdsniper 1 hours ago [-]
True, the CDC royally fucked that up.
mcmoebius 1 days ago [-]
they also gave (temp) raises to their workers.
chrisco255 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
I’m not following. The barrier separated the cashiers who were mandated to wear masks from the customers who were asked to wear masks (asked vs absolutely forced after violent protests by angry “freedom loving” customers). It was essentially like a giant plastic face mask that medical staff were wearing at the time in addition to masks. I’d sure like it to be present in the same way I wouldn’t eat at a buffet without a sneeze guard. You’d fault the company for spending time and money building those out for their cashiers? Keeping the store open - while asking everyone to social distance and wear masks - kept people employed and allowed mothers that needed to stop by a store to pickup something when they may not have another option to do so.
1 days ago [-]
boston_clone 1 days ago [-]
What “scare”? You mean the novel coronavirus pandemic which killed millions?
The Texas state government overrode city ordinances and attempts by private businesses to enforce masking for in-store shopping. Simply saying it was wide open like the rest of Texas is extremely inaccurate. Here’s the EO which refutes, like, every single weird point you’re trying to make:
Viruses do not "fester" on flat surfaces, if they fester in anything it is cells
cwillu 17 hours ago [-]
I think you replied to the wrong comment.
asciimov 1 days ago [-]
My dad worked for HEB for 35 years. He never planned to stay there when he started in the late eighties, but they had better hours than his prior work as a photojournalist and treated him a whole lot better.
HEB believes that if you treat your employees right, that they will in turn treat their customers well.
As someone that has spent years living away from HEB they are just a great store to have access to. Better prices, store brands that are often better than national, and they usually have a good produce selection. When we moved to the San Antonio area a decade ago, having access to HEB again was one of the most exciting parts of the move.
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
Same here. After 7 years out of state, I moved back to TX and was at HEB almost every day to marvel at the selection of products and ready to eat foods (was also single).
niwtsol 1 days ago [-]
I haven’t lived in Texas for about 10 years now, anytime my mom comes to visit and she asks “can I bring you anything?” - I always ask her to bring me a couple packages of HEB tortillas. The multiple mentions of the tortillas in this story has me salivating.
DANmode 1 days ago [-]
For those that don’t understand: they make them in-house, or more specifically, on-site - not centralized.
rstupek 1 days ago [-]
There’s nothing like a fresh made batch, still warm
cellular 1 days ago [-]
Does he remember HEB camp?
cityofdelusion 1 days ago [-]
HEB operates a similar model to Costco in being more expensive to the customer in a subtle way, through desirability. Their products are so interesting and appetizing that I go in with the intention of buying $30 of groceries and leave with a $100 load. Many of these products end up as local memes (tortillas, brisket queso, green sauce) they are so desirable.
Wal-Mart is the opposite. I go in to buy groceries and am always astonished to have my trip be like for $27 or something. I usually shop from the outside of the grocery (raw produce) and they are just dirt cheap.
HEB operates a series of upscale Central Market stores that are even more lopsided in price and even more interesting in selection.
tmh88j 1 days ago [-]
> HEB operates a similar model to Costco in being more expensive to the customer in a subtle way, through desirability. Their products are so interesting and appetizing that I go in with the intention of buying $30 of groceries and leave with a $100 load.
Costco groceries are expensive because you're forced to buy in bulk. You can leave HEB with 1 tube of toothpaste or a single potato. You can't leave Costco with fewer than 5 tubes of toothpaste or several pounds of potatoes. I love Costco and imo they win in a few areas like the butcher, but HEB crushes them in the variety of desirable groceries hands down.
yurishimo 1 days ago [-]
Fun fact but Central Market actually operates on the same margins as HEB. Their produce in particular is competitively priced. Where they get you however, is that all of their produce is jumbo sized. So yea, you have a competitive price on the apples per pound, but if you want 6 apples, they are on average going to be more than from HEB or a different supermarket.
Subtle, but it allows them to make some fun marketing claims!
skeeter2020 1 days ago [-]
In Canada WalMart super centers (the ones with groceries) are low quality and have prices as high as (or higher) than other stores. Everything is prepackaged and shipped to the store so meat, dairy and bakery is the worst in town.
BigGreenJorts 21 hours ago [-]
Yeah grocery at Walmart is ONLY for shelf stables and some frozens (even that is rare with their freezer operating practices) for me bc the quality of the "outside" is so poor.
jollymonATX 16 hours ago [-]
Yes I hear people talking about great deals at HEB often and you are correct. They are more expensive. You simply cannot reason with cultists however.
horns4lyfe 1 days ago [-]
Ya, central market was the only store close to me for a while and it crushed my budget, but was very worth it
collabs 1 days ago [-]
I lived closer to WinCo in DFW area and could walk to a grocery store to buy bread or some random grocery item. It was really nice. I don't think Europeans will ever understand how much of a flex it is to be able to walk to a grocery store in Texas.
CharlesW 1 days ago [-]
To be fair, it's difficult for a European to walk to a grocery store in Texas.
jubilanti 22 hours ago [-]
I don't think you realize how boringly normal it is in Europe for people to never have a car and take public transit to the hypermarket, the same Cathedral of Consumerist Capitalism with a combined supermarket, shopping mall, movie theater, often a stadium for concerts and sports... And you can go with a granny hand cart multiple times a week because it's just a few stops on public transit, where it is also often a hub. La Defense and Forum des Halles in Paris, Stratford City in London, Mall of Tripla in Helsinki, Vasco de Gama in Lisbon
HFguy 7 hours ago [-]
I think you are 100% misunderstanding what they are saying.
They are saying almost no one in Texas can walk to a grocery store. Hence, it is a flex if you can. And Europeans don't understand that it is that unusual.
ahartmetz 16 hours ago [-]
I've lived in three different places in Berlin and never took public transit for grocery shopping. It would be pointless because the shops are in walking distance, just a few hundred meters away. Hypermarkets (which are rare, though I guess you could call Kaufland a mini-hypermarket) or more specialized stores are for less daily needs.
DANmode 1 days ago [-]
I don’t think Europeans want to understand why most of us are okay with a massive struggle to get food and basics,
instead of them being on every corner.
6 hours ago [-]
FastRodent 1 days ago [-]
Yes they treat us very well. I had a coworker who suffered from addiction and every few weeks they reached out to see if they were okay. This went on for two years until they quit.
Literally if you are willing to work they will hire you. Alot of my family and friends have started their careers here and they love it.
Unsurprisingly the way they treat employees also means that the talent pool in corporate is excellent. Employees are very invested in the company's future.
I could go on but yes they are good.
MeetingsBrowser 1 days ago [-]
The biggest difference I’ve noticed is HEB has plenty of employees who don’t seem depressed to be there.
When I’ve been to HEB I see plenty of cashier lanes open, each with a cashier and bagger, people stocking aisles, a team behind the butcher and bakery counters, etc.
By comparison, Kroger seems to try and have a skeleton crew at all times. Usually a single cashier, a self checkout supervisor, and a couple of people frantically stocking.
The Kroger employees look over worked and clearly unhappy to be there.
The HEB employees seem generally happy and are usually in groups chatting with coworkers and customers while they work.
Shopping at Kroger feels almost dystopian relative to HEB.
99954bb63ccc 1 days ago [-]
Yep. And they don't charge much of a premium to deliver this. I can buy things at HEB and not worry about them being expired/etc, even for grocery pickup. Kroger, afaict, _chooses_ the expiring/broken stuff if you do grocery pickup. Kroger is closer to me so I've given it several chances, but every time they seem to get me in a new way to get me with opened, expired, or damaged stuff, and I won't be bothered to establish a quality control process just to buy some groceries. Meanwhile I've done grocery pickup from HEB for a couple years now and have maybe 3-4 things I've had to request a refund. The whole foods near me is heading down the Kroger route too.
It's literally just doing the core service better than average and allowing it to yield results. "hmmm lets try not scamming people so we can save pennies on some expired bell peppers in a loss leader area to begin with... Perhaps they'll also pick up some prescriptions while they are here! Heck, I bet if we make some effort to keep our employees relatively happy, customers might also have a better experience in our stores!"
IMO/rant, few businesses/people seem to grasp this and all think there is some magic "business hack" they can do while avoiding doing the core business thing well. And I don't think it's that they don't know it, it's the divorce between the reality they themselves likely desire to live in and experience, and the reality they build/provide day to day in their work. But, that plagues everything these days tbh. Nobody just wants to do the fundamentals well, everyone is looking for "this one simple hack" that alleviates having to just do the work. The calculator might save you some money, but it'll never, by itself, extract the gold from the mine.
rottencupcakes 1 days ago [-]
It’s interesting that the private supermarkets (TJs, HEB) seem to both follow this happy and overstaffed model, and the public ones (Kroger, Albertsons/Safeway) do the opposite.
Albertson’s adds insult to injury by overcharging for everything. Tomato? $4.99/lb please.
vikingerik 1 days ago [-]
Publix is also on that first list, of happy and overstaffed and privately owned. I do most of my shopping there and it's much more pleasurable than Kroger or Walmart.
Conscat 1 days ago [-]
Personally I hated Publix when I lived in Florida and it made me homesick. I've never had so much food come with mold in the packaging than from Publix.
AshleyGrant 23 hours ago [-]
While the employees might be happy at Publix, they are in, in my experience, poorly trained. Also, the rest of the shopping experience is utter crap compared to H-E-B. Publix of 2026 is a far cry from Publix of ~2000. This is especially evident in their Produce and Meat departments.
I had to argue with a Meat Department Manager at a Publix in Central Florida who told me that "Top Round Roast" did not exist. I told him I could walk 50 feet to the Deli and get some slices of the Boar's Head Top Round Roast Beef if he'd like to try this non-existent cut. He did not have an answer and I had to show him images of the cut I wanted and he said they don't sell that cut.
This was great given it was a 20-mile round trip to that store for me...
Having spent most of my life in the south, I thought Publix was a great grocery store. But then I spent some time traveling the US and discovered stores like H-E-B, Hy-Vee, Wegmans, and Harmons and realized that Publix was just clean version of a low-end grocery store.
lotsofpulp 1 days ago [-]
They are not serving the same customers. HEB operates in a state that has exploded economically for quite a few decades, and where people have large, growing families that cook a lot.
TJs and Costco also have similar fan bases, but they restrict their stores to the richer side of town.
Kroger and Albertsons, however, have operations in many stagnant or declining areas, saddled with union contracts from a long time ago when those places were not stagnant. Household sizes and hence the utility of full service grocers have fallen precipitously for many of their stores.
There is certainly a component of HEB’s leaders choosing to not squeeze a short term profit now, but they wouldn’t be able to do it if Walmart and Kroger could eat their lunch because their customer base was declining in numbers and purchasing power.
Hell, even Kroger and Albertsons’ customer base is declining in purchasing power which is why not Aldi and Lidl are wrecking them wherever Walmart hasn’t.
Dan_- 1 days ago [-]
Both Kroger and Albertsons also operate in Texas, in the same cities, often a short distance away from HEB.
anjel 1 days ago [-]
Aldi's and Lidl have 1/3 the SKUs which in and of itself is a winning advantage.
tancop 10 hours ago [-]
[dead]
MeetingsBrowser 1 days ago [-]
> few businesses/people seem to grasp this and all think there is some magic "business hack" they can do while avoiding doing the core business thing well.
Unfortunately , it seems to work for Kroger.
As customers we hate it, but Kroger sells something like 20% of all groceries in the US, and HEB is a s small by comparison regional grocer
99954bb63ccc 1 days ago [-]
Yea. Just my observation, they are losing some pretty big markets in that region. It's pretty clear from going in the Kroger stores anywhere near an HEB that HEB is really hurting them. They are all empty (dystopian as the OP of thos thread put it) any time I go in. And HEB shows no signs of slowing down...
CommieBobDole 1 days ago [-]
I've experienced the same thing except sed 's/HEB/Publix/g'
This is probably just a 'Kroger vs nice supermarket' thing.
MeetingsBrowser 1 days ago [-]
Kroger is one example. Most other stores in Texas had the same depressed skeleton crew feel, except for higher end options that cost 3x normal groceries.
Same thing for Bucee’s compared to normal gas stations.
Bucee’s popularity exploded by asking “what if we paid someone to clean the bathrooms at a gas station” and following the logical chain of thought from there.
People like spending money at businesses that aren’t depressing or gross to be in.
rottencupcakes 1 days ago [-]
Buc-ee’s ain’t cheap. But people pay it.
evilduck 1 days ago [-]
Their gas is priced competitively. Everything is hard to compare because it's usually not even available aty other gas stations. It's like half of a Bass Pro Shops tacked on to a bizarre bbq restaurant that lacks seating. Comparing it to 7-11 or a Sinclair or Conoco gas station makes little sense. It's closer to a Love's Travel Center, and in which case their pricing holds up.
devilbunny 21 hours ago [-]
Kroger can and does run nice stores. Kroger Signature, Harris Teeter are two I've been in relatively recently.
You're also only going to find those in the same kinds of places you'd find a Trader Joe's or Costco - only in the nicest parts of town unless it's very densely populated or a small but rich enclave.
antonymoose 1 days ago [-]
Perhaps interesting, my Publix experiences are almost always… not great. The staff seems aged (don’t hate me, I’m also aged!) - but they seem more on the apathetic and miserable side of the spectrum. I always heard how well they treat their employees so I assume it is some kind of retail trap where the job is too good to give up but never good enough to be truly good?
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
Safeway and its nationwide equivalents are the epitome of this. These stores haven’t changed since at least when I was a kid in the 80s. They end up selecting for the most desperate employees because they treat them so badly.
tofuziggy 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
bdcravens 1 days ago [-]
My wife was actually working at HEB when we met, so I can definitely say I've found some great options there. :-)
Seriously though, I prefer many things there: recycled toilet paper/paper towels, pet food (their quality line, not the cheap stuff), and even their to-go sushi are all among my favorites in those categories. For beer drinkers, they actually have an impressive craft selection.
JoshGlazebrook 1 days ago [-]
HEB is still a lot better than the national chains, but HEB has also started cutting costs in various areas. Their tortilla chips are no longer made in store, the bakery is essentially just frozen dough that comes in and is baked. Their cakes have historically been dense and dry. A lot of the time when they come out with their store brand product, they will just drop the name brand now, and in some cases it's clearly a downgrade.
So while I still admire HEB and choose it over anything else, it's on its way down in terms of quality and value.
Haven't been to Central Market (their high end brand) in a while, but it's night and day compared to HEB.
doctorspazz 1 days ago [-]
HEB does a lot of great in house foods too. I don’t regret leaving Texas, but I really miss the fresh tortillas and tamales from HEB sometimes.
krapp 1 days ago [-]
The HEB across the street from me took down their kitchen and installed a pizza oven and now they just sell pizzas. They're good pizzas but I do miss the Tex-Mex.
They still have an "Asian" market too but it's far too expensive for what it is, mostly sushi with various kind of goop drizzled on top.
doodlebugging 1 days ago [-]
The Butts are some good people. When I was a kid in Central Texas my family shopped at their stores. It was a real drag to move to a part of Texas outside their operating range and spend so many years there so their recent expansion across the state is the one welcome thing about Texas.
HEB and their upscale Central Market are the only grocery stores that we visit. We do drop by World Market occasionally for oddball things but if we don't grow it and HEB/CM doesn't sell it we probably aren't eating it.
I think one of the best things about the new HEBs is the attached BBQ store. Dependably good BBQ options with a Central Texas BBQ flavor that beat all of the fast food options locally. We have a wide selection of fast foods since this region is in a massive growth stage absorbing all the FtW refugees. HEB BBQ and the other fresh meals available inside that take little or no prep are dependable, flavorful, options for quick meals and picnics.
Locally we have Walmart, Target, Albertsons, Brookshires, Winn Dixie(?), Aldi, and maybe a couple other smaller ones including some Dollar (G/T) stores for groceries. Walmart is the only one that offers similar options but the quality of their fresh stuff can't measure up. Albertsons was the go-to for years if we had to swing into town for groceries and didn't feel like adding the extra commute to FtW Central Market. We stopped going there after we took a rafting trip down the Salmon in Idaho and rounded a curve in the river and found a large vacation home built right up on the bank complete with a concrete boat ramp. The river guide told us the house was a vacation home owned by the Albertsons grocery store family and that it was vacant most of the year. The concrete ramp is not allowed on any stretch of the river since it is in a Wild and Scenic area but it was built anyway because the sanction for building the ramp was a simple annual fine, easily affordable for billionaire grocers. We had rafted that river several times over the years and the encroachment of second homes and vacation homes on all the high spots up there really degrades the wilderness feel.
I'm not going too far down that trail today since that is too far OT.
If you're in Texas, HEB is the grocery store. The others suck balls.
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
My favorite thing was when the largest HEBs had garden centers. They had a selection of native plants that you would only find at local specialty $$$ nurseries at fair prices. I wish they would bring these back. I would start in the garden center and they by the time I found all kinds of new things I didn’t know that I needed in the rest of the store, I’d get a where the f are you call from my wife because it was 2 hours later.
doodlebugging 1 days ago [-]
I understand how this works with the wife. I "graze" the store when I go by myself though I do carry a list of things to pick up. The local store has a wide selection of Texas native plants at good prices. Some of these plants I had never heard of and I am in the process of restoration of my own property so it was good to see something at HEB and pull up the NPSoT (Native Plant Society of Texas) data on it to find that it used to be common in the region before development. Their garden products are also competitively priced - wood chips and mulch, garden soils, etc.
jmalicki 1 days ago [-]
> I think one of the best things about the new HEBs is the attached BBQ store.
Not a Texan, just visited occasionally.
This sentence more than anything has just made me want to become a Texan. I did not know this was a thing, but that sounds amazing.
1 days ago [-]
viccis 1 days ago [-]
In Houston they also sell boiled crawfish by the pound during crawfish season so you can have a big crawfish dinner with you and your friends without the whole process of making them yourself.
The catch is that, like the crawfish, their BBQ is pretty mid. So if you want great BBQ, you gotta drive a mile or two to a real BBQ place. But if you want some brisket before you do your grocery shopping, it hits the spot.
doodlebugging 1 days ago [-]
I'm not gonna argue the quality of HEB BBQ since it obviously stands on its own merits among Texas shoppers. The meat that I smoke at home is better than any that I have bought at a BBQ joint or stand in the country outside of this one stand in Greenville, Mississippi. While working there, I made sure that I stocked up on meats every day. That man had it down. I've been eating BBQ since I was a small child and I'm on the downhill side of life right now.
viccis 20 hours ago [-]
Bear in mind that Blue Bell, a company that knowingly killed people with listeria, "stands on its own merits" among Texas shoppers.
doodlebugging 10 hours ago [-]
This is true. Some people can let this slide and go back to buying products from companies that have clearly demonstrated where their own priorities lie. Allowing Blue Bell back into the market was a mistake in my opinion and it is the reason that we do not buy any Blue Bell products. There are so many other products available from so many different companies, none of which has the history that Blue Bell chose. When we buy ice cream or similar frozen items we buy other brands.
In my own mind, second chances are context dependent. They clearly knew about the problem and the potential health consequences for customers, and they chose to continue operations. Some people became sick and others died. There are no second chances in that situation. All of the people at Blue Bell in the chain who decided to keep running should be in prison and their assets confiscated.
I'm glad that we were not big ice cream eaters while this was a problem because Blue Bell was one of our trusted brands.
HEB carries Blue Bell but I don't have to buy it since they also carry quite a few other brands.
drivingmenuts 1 days ago [-]
I would rate their BBQ equal to anything else you'll find in Austin, except maybe Franklin BBQ, which I don't have the patience for, so I haven't tried it nor will I bother.
verall 8 hours ago [-]
There's so many other bbq restaurants competitive with Franklin and better than heb.
For the price though, the heb bbq is extremely competitive. But if someone is coming to town looking for great bbq (even without any Franklin line), there are a bunch of places id recommend first.
jmalicki 10 hours ago [-]
You are really making me want to move! I've been to Franklin BBQ, but am happy to settle for Rudy's for shorter lines. But if I can get that quality at the grocery store? That changes the equation.
lotsofpulp 1 days ago [-]
> We stopped going there after we took a rafting trip down the Salmon in Idaho and rounded a curve in the river and found a large vacation home built right up on the bank complete with a concrete boat ramp.
The Albertsons founding family and heirs has had nothing to do with Albertsons grocery stores for at least 20 years.
If I were you, and if the information above was true, my beef would be with the government and the voters.
doodlebugging 1 days ago [-]
My beef is in fact with the government and the voters and those who use their wealth to destroy something that others have paid a substantial part of their own incomes to go out and enjoy. The first time I rafted and kayaked that river there was one dirt road that ran along the river for a few miles past the put-in and miles further down the canyon there was one high-tension power line. You were miles into the Snake River before you saw homes from the river. Over the decades I ran that same stretch several times and each time encroachment was worse. Rich cocksuckers who build homes that they only use for a week at a time are the equivalent of cockroaches that drop their egg cases and move on. One egg case causes the whole area to become infested with others in a few short years.
The attraction of the river was the silence and the grand views, paddling the rapids at different flow levels and learning to read the water, watching wildlife come up to the river, admiring the geologic story told by the rocks exposed on the canyon walls, the dark night skies. Once you add a structure, with the supporting access roads, powerlines, etc into the mix you have destroyed something that was worth saving for future generations. I don't expect everyone to understand that since too many people spend their lives caught up in the bullshit pursuit of money or recognition.
I don't give a shit whether that family still owns or runs the grocery business or did when they built that place. The fact that they built there, right on the river and built a ramp to launch their jet-boat on what had been one of the quietest stretches of the river makes them my enemy and worthy of my contempt. The fact that they decided to build the ramp and just pay the annual fines is an artifact of a broken system where penalties and sanctions do not match the gravity of the infraction. Wealthy people do whatever they want, trashing things everywhere they go. It could be true that this will never change. I'm hoping that it will though and working to help it along.
lotsofpulp 1 days ago [-]
>I don't give a shit whether that family still owns or runs the grocery business or did when they built that place.
My point was that you are just inconveniencing yourself by avoiding a particular business because you erroneously believe avoiding it will impact a certain party.
CSMastermind 1 days ago [-]
I have a weird affection for good georcery chains. Wegmans, HEB, Giant Eagle, to a limited extent Publix. It's so odd to me that there are areas of the country with nothing like them. It really seems like you just need one good family who decides that they're going to care about how they're set up and make an effort to build a company with the right values.
aidenn0 1 days ago [-]
Grocery stores got bad in most of the country the way a lot of things did, through illegal M&A.
CSMastermind 7 hours ago [-]
They used to have HEB, Wegmans, etc quality stores in Seattle before some merger? What were they?
Why did this M&A seemingly not happen in Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio?
aidenn0 5 hours ago [-]
I've never lived in Seattle, but I know that Haggen was a casualty of The Safeway/Albertson's merger[1]; I can't speak to their quality.
Safeway and Albertsons had already bought up many grocery stores prior to that merger. When I was a kid, we knew which grocer had the best butcher and which had the best baker, and neither were chain stores.
1: Granted Haggen isn't entirely innocent here; they saw a potential growth opportunity and over-leveraged.
My mom moved out of Texas about 20 years ago, and still sometimes talks fondly about HEB.
I'm currently in Dallas, and annoyingly there is no HEB within a reasonable distance, though they have finally started opening stores in the DFW metro area. Just none in central Dallas, yet. They do just about everything right. Their lower bound on quality for stuff like produce is higher than most stores, their store brands are usually higher quality than the big brands (real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, fewer unpronounceable ingredients, etc., and often simply taste better). Their employees seem more invested in it being a good shopping experience, and I hope that means they're treated well.
Anyway, it's earned loyalty. It's not just a "well, it's been here for a long time and it's what I'm used to".
SOLAR_FIELDS 1 days ago [-]
The way HEB wins the hearts and souls of every Texan is via the tortilla machine. No other major grocery chain stocks fresh, daily made tortillas and instead offers premade "tortillas"
whatthesmack 1 days ago [-]
Buc-ee's (another from-Texas staple) also offers fresh, daily-made tortillas :)
fastball 1 days ago [-]
They might not have as many HEBs in DFW, but that is where Central Market is head-quartered!
SwellJoe 1 days ago [-]
The Dallas Central Market is a 35 minute bike ride away. Too far. And, besides, it's not HEB. It's fine, but there's a Whole Foods 27 minutes away if I want the fancy groceries, though that's also too far for a regular grocery run.
Conscat 1 days ago [-]
As much as I loved growing up with HEB, my fondest memories are of eating Central Market squid salad and brie in its playground/music venue backyard.
1 days ago [-]
bob1029 23 hours ago [-]
I shop at a combination of HEB and Kroger. I go to HEB when I want their corn tortillas and good customer service. I go to Kroger for everything else.
HEB is a fantastically ran store, but the quality of many of the goods tends to suffer relative to competition. Things like chicken broth that isn't fake can only be found at the gigantic, brand-new HEB 30 miles away (or at any Kroger). The local HEB built a decade ago seems to be somewhat forgotten by corporate.
poffdeluxe 1 days ago [-]
Fiance and I moved from Austin to the Bay Area about two years ago. The thing we miss the most? Probably HEB.
vajrabum 1 days ago [-]
I go to Texas to visit family and a visit or two to H-E-B is usually a part of that. They operate great stores, they treat their employees well (several family members have worked there) and they have great products. I love my local grocery store where I shop but H-E-B is pretty much next level.
sfifs 17 hours ago [-]
It's quite interesting what incentives and culture being a privately held company creates.
Arubis 1 days ago [-]
I lived in Dallas for about four years. There’s not a lot I miss, but I sure do miss Central Market (an HEB brand).
RhysU 1 days ago [-]
I want someone to start a monthly subscription service that mails HEB tortillas within the continental US using UT Austin students as the smurfs. The ad copy writes itself.
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
The difference is that cook them in something cast iron pan like with lard the way my grandmother did. In her case, big ass can of crisco. I bet a lot of people would be turned off if they realized that, but there ain’t no way around it for the taste.
owlninja 1 days ago [-]
I'll avoid going during super busy times (which is always) but if the meal calls for tortillas I am going to HEB.
gamblor956 1 days ago [-]
HEB tortillas are good for a store brand but you can get better tortillas at any half decent Mexican mom and pop store in SoCal.
16 hours ago [-]
tristor 23 hours ago [-]
Every time I move away from Texas, it's not the BBQ or any of the other things that might come to mind I miss, it's HEB. There's no other grocery store like it. HEB legitimately has everything I need and more, even in the normal stores, and when I want something really special its available through Central Market or an HEB Plus. The way they treat their employees and exist in the community far exceeds the expectations most people have of a grocery chain.
I'll never forget that they were one of the first on site after the recent flooding in South Texas to feed first responders and employees paid to volunteer in the search party, they provided food at no cost when their stores lost power to thousands of households during Snowpocalypse and worked tirelessly to restock and restore power via generator to ensure folks could get what they needed even as the city went dark, and during Katrina they set up mobile kitchens and kept them stocked to feed emergency workers and storm refugees throughout the Houston metro area, as well as many many many other examples of them stepping up when our own state government has failed us.
As someone who's lived in Texas off an on for more than two decades and lives here now, I would trust HEB ten times before I'd trust anyone in the state government here.
drivingmenuts 1 days ago [-]
Randy Feltface (Australian puppet comedian) was absolutely blown away by HEB when he came to Texas. Apparently, they have nothing like that in Australia.
Two constants in Texas: HEB and Waffle House.
lysace 1 days ago [-]
I kind of enjoy grocery store/chain discussions on e.g. national subreddits because it's a way of engaging people normally not into economics, corporate structures and incentives and getting them to actually think about the topics.
Sweden: The dominant one is called ICA. Shared brand and supply chain. Stores are locally owned, typically 1, maybe 2 stores per owner. Store owners own a share of the centralized aspects. Customers generally prefer it, except for those on the (quite) left. It often becomes a political charged debate topic on a national level.
People do seem to at least eventually understand that local ownership is good since it translates into caring.
The charges from the left: a) Possibly valid: They have gotten too good/dominant, b) Just stupid: "They are ripping people off with their 2% profit margins".
cute_boi 1 days ago [-]
The best thing about HEB is they have lot of vegan items compared to other grocery store and they are lot cheaper and better than Walmart.
BobbyTables2 1 days ago [-]
Sigh… They’ll never be able to compete with Kroger’s wide selection of extremely expired food.
(/s)
jollymonATX 1 days ago [-]
This store is highly over-rated.
bell-cot 4 days ago [-]
> Perhaps the real question isn’t: Why does H-E-B do so many nice things for the state? But: Why aren’t more companies like H-E-B?
> ... in this company’s nearly 120-year history, it’s remained family-owned and operated.
It has been more than a century since the American legal system told publicly-owned companies "Don't Be Good"
> It has been more than a century since the American legal system told publicly-owned companies "Don't Be Good"
The American legal system did no such thing in the Dodge ruling: as stated in the Wikipedia article itself, the 'pay shareholders' idea was in the obiter dictum (non-binding remark) portion.
And as recently as Burwell v Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court said:
> While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives.
Literally, you are kinda correct about Dodge. Practically, not so much. The court's judgement quite effectively ordered to Ford to abandon his rather pro-social plan, the keystone of which was dramatic corporate growth, in favor of giving his minority shareholders a big hunk of the money (needed for that plan) ASAP.
The difference between that decision and "Don't be Good" is that if you have zero greedy shareholders, or are ready for a protracted and uncertain legal battle against them, then you might get away with being good. Otherwise - make sure any seeming good you do is some combination of de minimis and trivial to defend as a tactic to maximize shareholder profits.
(Hobby Lobby is a decision about about closely-held and privately-held corporations, when they are claiming strong religious reasons for policies which a majority of the Supreme Count Justices have very obvious ideological reasons to favor. And also have both the motive and resources to spends years fighting through the Federal Court System. The relevance to 99.99% of the decisions made by corporations is very close to nill.)
throw0101a 23 hours ago [-]
Dodge was in 1919, and shareholder primacy didn't really get going until the late-1970s or early-1980s:
So there's several decades between the two where it wasn't really a thing. The late Lynn Stout (amongst others) has written extensively on this:
> The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public (Berrett Keohler Publications, 2012) challenges the ideology of shareholder value. Part I, “Debunking the Shareholder Value Myth,” traces the intellectual origins of shareholder-primacy thinking. It shows how the ideology of shareholder value maximization lacks any solid foundation in corporate law, corporate economics, or the empirical evidence. Contrary to what many believe, U.S. corporate law does not impose any enforceable legal duty on corporate directors or executives of public corporations to maximize profits or share price. The economic case for shareholder-value maximization similarly rests on incorrect factual claims about the structure of corporations, including the mistaken claims that shareholders “own” corporations, that they have the only residual claim on the firm’s profits, and that they are principals who hire and control directors to act as their agents. Finally, there is a notable lack of persuasive empirical evidence demonstrating that individual corporations run according to the principles of shareholder value maximization perform better over time than those that are not. Worse, when we look at macroeconomic data—overall investment returns, numbers of firms choosing to go or remain public, relative economic performance of “shareholder-friendly” jurisdictions—it suggests shareholder value dogma may be economically counterproductive. Part I concludes shareholder-value ideology is based on wishful thinking, not reality. As a theory of corporate purpose, it is poised for intellectual collapse.
Managerialism, which was the predominant theory before Friedman kind of took over, seemed to do relatively well:
> The system was hardly perfect.11 But the proof of the pudding is thetasting. Judged by that standard, managerial capitalism seemed to generate good results. American corporations dominated the global economy, producing innovative products for their consumers, secure jobs for their employees, and corporate tax revenues for their government. And-especially notable-they produced outstanding investment results for public shareholders. Between 1933 and 1976 (a period that includes the infamous bear market of 1973-1974),12 shareholders who invested in the S&P 500 enjoyed inflation-adjusted compound average annual returns of 7.5%. 13This compares very favorably indeed with the sorts of returns shareholders have received more recently.14
There have been multiple ideas about the purpose and responsibility of corporations and their management over the decades, all under the same legal regime.
Further, even talking about "shareholders" brings up issues: what is meant by "shareholder"? The pension fund that wants steady dividend payments for 3 decades? The hedge fund that wants a meteoric rise in share prices in 3 years? The day trader that's trying to cash in on a meme in 3 days? There is no (single) Platonic "shareholder" that a company's directors can aim to be best at: there are a variety of people holding stock for different reasons. See concept of "shareholder heterogeneity".
Was John Sculley doing the right thing by going for maximum profits and shares prices when he was CEO of Apple (and kicked Steve Jobs out)? How that'd work out for AAPL in the 1990s? How has focusing on financials gone for Boeing (since they bought out McDonnel–Douglas)? How did all the stuff that Jack Welch did at GE work out?
larrydag 1 days ago [-]
Shareholder primacy is a drain on so many levels. Think of all the R&D that could have been spent instead of buying back shares.
lotsofpulp 1 days ago [-]
The share buybacks help offset these big companies’ RSUs for highly compensated employees. The share buybacks also allow shareholders to have a taxable event when they want to, not when the business wants them to.
It would be crazy not to do share buybacks for a growing business.
chomp 1 days ago [-]
I don’t think that ruling distills down that far. But I will grant you that if you’re leaving enough obvious money on the table, activist investors will come knocking.
infecto 1 days ago [-]
There are plenty of crappy family owned business that pay too little and expect too much. I don’t know if this is a public vs private company issue.
bell-cot 1 days ago [-]
True. Family-owned is "allowed to be good". Not "motivated". And bluntly put, the vast majority of businesses are running on thin margins - they couldn't pay well for reasonable work if they wanted to.
infecto 7 hours ago [-]
I would even go as far to argue that there are far more worse companies employee benefits wise in private companies than public. Public companies kind of like markets solve a really hard problem. It’s probably not always the optimal solution but hopefully gets there over the horizon.
cogman10 1 days ago [-]
> Why does H-E-B do so many nice things for the state? But: Why aren’t more companies like H-E-B?
Regardless any sort of legal principle, the fact is capitalism rewards exploitation. The more a company exploits, the more profit it can bring in. Whether that be worker or customer.
While it's not stated that way in business management courses, that's exactly how it's taught in a round about way. The entire business class is chasing after efficiency, how to do more with less. And their idols are the likes of Walmart who will shut down a store if anyone says "union" and who aggressively negotiates for tax breaks in every location where their stores go up.
But further, venture capitalists have learned that one of the most effective ways to extract capital is to purchase well respected brands and destroy their quality while sucking off every last bit of value before customers wise up to the impending death of a beloved brand (see Sears, KMart, and basically all of fast food at this point. Also, be prepared to see this in your vet, dentist, and retirement homes).
People make millions doing these awful things which is why they keep happening. It's simply a lot harder and less profitable to make a "good" company which makes good products and respects their customers. And if H-E-B ever sells to a 3rd party, exactly the same thing will happen to them in a heartbeat.
PaulDavisThe1st 1 days ago [-]
> The more a company exploits, the more profit it can bring in.
In the short run, that doesn't seem worth arguing with.
It isn't clear whether or not it is really true in the long run. If shareholders (and courts) demanded the long view, it's equally unclear if the exploitation approach could really have taken hold.
cogman10 1 days ago [-]
In the long run for who is the question.
It's worked great for walmart for several decades now.
And the venture capitalists continue to use the plunder from prior pillaging to continue the exploit train.
And further when a company achieves monopoly or near monopoly status, it becomes nearly impossible for a competitor to knock them off their perch.
The unfortunate thing is for the people engaged in exploitation this is a great long term strategy. A CEO that does this can almost always land another job as a CEO for another company to rinse and repeat the process. See Mark Hurd.
But this story[0] is the one that I think sums up the love people have for HEB pretty well. During the 2021 "Great Texas Freeze" [1] (where 4+million homes went without power for days, 10+million without safe drinking water and 200+ died); basically during a rush to stock up on food, the power went out at an HEB and they couldnt check anyone out, but instead of telling everyone to leave their carts and exit to go home without food, they let them all to walk out with whatever they had in their carts.
It's unfortunate that more big businesses don't even try to be a net positive the way HEB does. (some seem to be actively hostile to the idea)
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/us/texas-storm-recovery-heb-g...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
> When it was their turn at the register, the Hennessys started loading their groceries on the conveyor belt but were told to put the groceries back in the cart. The woman at the register asked if they had alcohol. They didn’t. Then she waved them toward the exits.
> “Go home and be safe,” she said.
The history of HEB is something I want to learn about. I know from reading Robert Caros LBJ volumes that Howard Butt was funneling a lot of money to LBJ staring in the 30s or 40s. Not to judge that, I’m just curious how they dominated Texas.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heb-prepared-coronavirus-p...
> The grocer started communicating with Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.)
The Texas state government overrode city ordinances and attempts by private businesses to enforce masking for in-store shopping. Simply saying it was wide open like the rest of Texas is extremely inaccurate. Here’s the EO which refutes, like, every single weird point you’re trying to make:
https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/EO-GA-38_continued...
HEB believes that if you treat your employees right, that they will in turn treat their customers well.
As someone that has spent years living away from HEB they are just a great store to have access to. Better prices, store brands that are often better than national, and they usually have a good produce selection. When we moved to the San Antonio area a decade ago, having access to HEB again was one of the most exciting parts of the move.
Wal-Mart is the opposite. I go in to buy groceries and am always astonished to have my trip be like for $27 or something. I usually shop from the outside of the grocery (raw produce) and they are just dirt cheap.
HEB operates a series of upscale Central Market stores that are even more lopsided in price and even more interesting in selection.
Costco groceries are expensive because you're forced to buy in bulk. You can leave HEB with 1 tube of toothpaste or a single potato. You can't leave Costco with fewer than 5 tubes of toothpaste or several pounds of potatoes. I love Costco and imo they win in a few areas like the butcher, but HEB crushes them in the variety of desirable groceries hands down.
Subtle, but it allows them to make some fun marketing claims!
They are saying almost no one in Texas can walk to a grocery store. Hence, it is a flex if you can. And Europeans don't understand that it is that unusual.
instead of them being on every corner.
Literally if you are willing to work they will hire you. Alot of my family and friends have started their careers here and they love it.
Unsurprisingly the way they treat employees also means that the talent pool in corporate is excellent. Employees are very invested in the company's future.
I could go on but yes they are good.
When I’ve been to HEB I see plenty of cashier lanes open, each with a cashier and bagger, people stocking aisles, a team behind the butcher and bakery counters, etc.
By comparison, Kroger seems to try and have a skeleton crew at all times. Usually a single cashier, a self checkout supervisor, and a couple of people frantically stocking.
The Kroger employees look over worked and clearly unhappy to be there.
The HEB employees seem generally happy and are usually in groups chatting with coworkers and customers while they work.
Shopping at Kroger feels almost dystopian relative to HEB.
It's literally just doing the core service better than average and allowing it to yield results. "hmmm lets try not scamming people so we can save pennies on some expired bell peppers in a loss leader area to begin with... Perhaps they'll also pick up some prescriptions while they are here! Heck, I bet if we make some effort to keep our employees relatively happy, customers might also have a better experience in our stores!"
IMO/rant, few businesses/people seem to grasp this and all think there is some magic "business hack" they can do while avoiding doing the core business thing well. And I don't think it's that they don't know it, it's the divorce between the reality they themselves likely desire to live in and experience, and the reality they build/provide day to day in their work. But, that plagues everything these days tbh. Nobody just wants to do the fundamentals well, everyone is looking for "this one simple hack" that alleviates having to just do the work. The calculator might save you some money, but it'll never, by itself, extract the gold from the mine.
Albertson’s adds insult to injury by overcharging for everything. Tomato? $4.99/lb please.
I had to argue with a Meat Department Manager at a Publix in Central Florida who told me that "Top Round Roast" did not exist. I told him I could walk 50 feet to the Deli and get some slices of the Boar's Head Top Round Roast Beef if he'd like to try this non-existent cut. He did not have an answer and I had to show him images of the cut I wanted and he said they don't sell that cut.
This was great given it was a 20-mile round trip to that store for me...
Having spent most of my life in the south, I thought Publix was a great grocery store. But then I spent some time traveling the US and discovered stores like H-E-B, Hy-Vee, Wegmans, and Harmons and realized that Publix was just clean version of a low-end grocery store.
TJs and Costco also have similar fan bases, but they restrict their stores to the richer side of town.
Kroger and Albertsons, however, have operations in many stagnant or declining areas, saddled with union contracts from a long time ago when those places were not stagnant. Household sizes and hence the utility of full service grocers have fallen precipitously for many of their stores.
There is certainly a component of HEB’s leaders choosing to not squeeze a short term profit now, but they wouldn’t be able to do it if Walmart and Kroger could eat their lunch because their customer base was declining in numbers and purchasing power.
Hell, even Kroger and Albertsons’ customer base is declining in purchasing power which is why not Aldi and Lidl are wrecking them wherever Walmart hasn’t.
Unfortunately , it seems to work for Kroger.
As customers we hate it, but Kroger sells something like 20% of all groceries in the US, and HEB is a s small by comparison regional grocer
This is probably just a 'Kroger vs nice supermarket' thing.
Same thing for Bucee’s compared to normal gas stations.
Bucee’s popularity exploded by asking “what if we paid someone to clean the bathrooms at a gas station” and following the logical chain of thought from there.
People like spending money at businesses that aren’t depressing or gross to be in.
You're also only going to find those in the same kinds of places you'd find a Trader Joe's or Costco - only in the nicest parts of town unless it's very densely populated or a small but rich enclave.
Seriously though, I prefer many things there: recycled toilet paper/paper towels, pet food (their quality line, not the cheap stuff), and even their to-go sushi are all among my favorites in those categories. For beer drinkers, they actually have an impressive craft selection.
So while I still admire HEB and choose it over anything else, it's on its way down in terms of quality and value.
Haven't been to Central Market (their high end brand) in a while, but it's night and day compared to HEB.
They still have an "Asian" market too but it's far too expensive for what it is, mostly sushi with various kind of goop drizzled on top.
HEB and their upscale Central Market are the only grocery stores that we visit. We do drop by World Market occasionally for oddball things but if we don't grow it and HEB/CM doesn't sell it we probably aren't eating it.
I think one of the best things about the new HEBs is the attached BBQ store. Dependably good BBQ options with a Central Texas BBQ flavor that beat all of the fast food options locally. We have a wide selection of fast foods since this region is in a massive growth stage absorbing all the FtW refugees. HEB BBQ and the other fresh meals available inside that take little or no prep are dependable, flavorful, options for quick meals and picnics.
Locally we have Walmart, Target, Albertsons, Brookshires, Winn Dixie(?), Aldi, and maybe a couple other smaller ones including some Dollar (G/T) stores for groceries. Walmart is the only one that offers similar options but the quality of their fresh stuff can't measure up. Albertsons was the go-to for years if we had to swing into town for groceries and didn't feel like adding the extra commute to FtW Central Market. We stopped going there after we took a rafting trip down the Salmon in Idaho and rounded a curve in the river and found a large vacation home built right up on the bank complete with a concrete boat ramp. The river guide told us the house was a vacation home owned by the Albertsons grocery store family and that it was vacant most of the year. The concrete ramp is not allowed on any stretch of the river since it is in a Wild and Scenic area but it was built anyway because the sanction for building the ramp was a simple annual fine, easily affordable for billionaire grocers. We had rafted that river several times over the years and the encroachment of second homes and vacation homes on all the high spots up there really degrades the wilderness feel.
I'm not going too far down that trail today since that is too far OT.
If you're in Texas, HEB is the grocery store. The others suck balls.
Not a Texan, just visited occasionally.
This sentence more than anything has just made me want to become a Texan. I did not know this was a thing, but that sounds amazing.
The catch is that, like the crawfish, their BBQ is pretty mid. So if you want great BBQ, you gotta drive a mile or two to a real BBQ place. But if you want some brisket before you do your grocery shopping, it hits the spot.
In my own mind, second chances are context dependent. They clearly knew about the problem and the potential health consequences for customers, and they chose to continue operations. Some people became sick and others died. There are no second chances in that situation. All of the people at Blue Bell in the chain who decided to keep running should be in prison and their assets confiscated.
I'm glad that we were not big ice cream eaters while this was a problem because Blue Bell was one of our trusted brands.
HEB carries Blue Bell but I don't have to buy it since they also carry quite a few other brands.
For the price though, the heb bbq is extremely competitive. But if someone is coming to town looking for great bbq (even without any Franklin line), there are a bunch of places id recommend first.
The Albertsons founding family and heirs has had nothing to do with Albertsons grocery stores for at least 20 years.
If I were you, and if the information above was true, my beef would be with the government and the voters.
The attraction of the river was the silence and the grand views, paddling the rapids at different flow levels and learning to read the water, watching wildlife come up to the river, admiring the geologic story told by the rocks exposed on the canyon walls, the dark night skies. Once you add a structure, with the supporting access roads, powerlines, etc into the mix you have destroyed something that was worth saving for future generations. I don't expect everyone to understand that since too many people spend their lives caught up in the bullshit pursuit of money or recognition.
I don't give a shit whether that family still owns or runs the grocery business or did when they built that place. The fact that they built there, right on the river and built a ramp to launch their jet-boat on what had been one of the quietest stretches of the river makes them my enemy and worthy of my contempt. The fact that they decided to build the ramp and just pay the annual fines is an artifact of a broken system where penalties and sanctions do not match the gravity of the infraction. Wealthy people do whatever they want, trashing things everywhere they go. It could be true that this will never change. I'm hoping that it will though and working to help it along.
My point was that you are just inconveniencing yourself by avoiding a particular business because you erroneously believe avoiding it will impact a certain party.
Why did this M&A seemingly not happen in Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio?
Safeway and Albertsons had already bought up many grocery stores prior to that merger. When I was a kid, we knew which grocer had the best butcher and which had the best baker, and neither were chain stores.
1: Granted Haggen isn't entirely innocent here; they saw a potential growth opportunity and over-leveraged.
I'm currently in Dallas, and annoyingly there is no HEB within a reasonable distance, though they have finally started opening stores in the DFW metro area. Just none in central Dallas, yet. They do just about everything right. Their lower bound on quality for stuff like produce is higher than most stores, their store brands are usually higher quality than the big brands (real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, fewer unpronounceable ingredients, etc., and often simply taste better). Their employees seem more invested in it being a good shopping experience, and I hope that means they're treated well.
Anyway, it's earned loyalty. It's not just a "well, it's been here for a long time and it's what I'm used to".
HEB is a fantastically ran store, but the quality of many of the goods tends to suffer relative to competition. Things like chicken broth that isn't fake can only be found at the gigantic, brand-new HEB 30 miles away (or at any Kroger). The local HEB built a decade ago seems to be somewhat forgotten by corporate.
I'll never forget that they were one of the first on site after the recent flooding in South Texas to feed first responders and employees paid to volunteer in the search party, they provided food at no cost when their stores lost power to thousands of households during Snowpocalypse and worked tirelessly to restock and restore power via generator to ensure folks could get what they needed even as the city went dark, and during Katrina they set up mobile kitchens and kept them stocked to feed emergency workers and storm refugees throughout the Houston metro area, as well as many many many other examples of them stepping up when our own state government has failed us.
As someone who's lived in Texas off an on for more than two decades and lives here now, I would trust HEB ten times before I'd trust anyone in the state government here.
Two constants in Texas: HEB and Waffle House.
Sweden: The dominant one is called ICA. Shared brand and supply chain. Stores are locally owned, typically 1, maybe 2 stores per owner. Store owners own a share of the centralized aspects. Customers generally prefer it, except for those on the (quite) left. It often becomes a political charged debate topic on a national level.
People do seem to at least eventually understand that local ownership is good since it translates into caring.
The charges from the left: a) Possibly valid: They have gotten too good/dominant, b) Just stupid: "They are ripping people off with their 2% profit margins".
(/s)
> ... in this company’s nearly 120-year history, it’s remained family-owned and operated.
It has been more than a century since the American legal system told publicly-owned companies "Don't Be Good"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
The American legal system did no such thing in the Dodge ruling: as stated in the Wikipedia article itself, the 'pay shareholders' idea was in the obiter dictum (non-binding remark) portion.
And as recently as Burwell v Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court said:
> While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives.
* http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/13-354.html
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,....
The difference between that decision and "Don't be Good" is that if you have zero greedy shareholders, or are ready for a protracted and uncertain legal battle against them, then you might get away with being good. Otherwise - make sure any seeming good you do is some combination of de minimis and trivial to defend as a tactic to maximize shareholder profits.
(Hobby Lobby is a decision about about closely-held and privately-held corporations, when they are claiming strong religious reasons for policies which a majority of the Supreme Count Justices have very obvious ideological reasons to favor. And also have both the motive and resources to spends years fighting through the Federal Court System. The relevance to 99.99% of the decisions made by corporations is very close to nill.)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
So there's several decades between the two where it wasn't really a thing. The late Lynn Stout (amongst others) has written extensively on this:
> The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public (Berrett Keohler Publications, 2012) challenges the ideology of shareholder value. Part I, “Debunking the Shareholder Value Myth,” traces the intellectual origins of shareholder-primacy thinking. It shows how the ideology of shareholder value maximization lacks any solid foundation in corporate law, corporate economics, or the empirical evidence. Contrary to what many believe, U.S. corporate law does not impose any enforceable legal duty on corporate directors or executives of public corporations to maximize profits or share price. The economic case for shareholder-value maximization similarly rests on incorrect factual claims about the structure of corporations, including the mistaken claims that shareholders “own” corporations, that they have the only residual claim on the firm’s profits, and that they are principals who hire and control directors to act as their agents. Finally, there is a notable lack of persuasive empirical evidence demonstrating that individual corporations run according to the principles of shareholder value maximization perform better over time than those that are not. Worse, when we look at macroeconomic data—overall investment returns, numbers of firms choosing to go or remain public, relative economic performance of “shareholder-friendly” jurisdictions—it suggests shareholder value dogma may be economically counterproductive. Part I concludes shareholder-value ideology is based on wishful thinking, not reality. As a theory of corporate purpose, it is poised for intellectual collapse.
* https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...
Managerialism, which was the predominant theory before Friedman kind of took over, seemed to do relatively well:
> The system was hardly perfect.11 But the proof of the pudding is thetasting. Judged by that standard, managerial capitalism seemed to generate good results. American corporations dominated the global economy, producing innovative products for their consumers, secure jobs for their employees, and corporate tax revenues for their government. And-especially notable-they produced outstanding investment results for public shareholders. Between 1933 and 1976 (a period that includes the infamous bear market of 1973-1974),12 shareholders who invested in the S&P 500 enjoyed inflation-adjusted compound average annual returns of 7.5%. 13This compares very favorably indeed with the sorts of returns shareholders have received more recently.14
* https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
There have been multiple ideas about the purpose and responsibility of corporations and their management over the decades, all under the same legal regime.
Further, even talking about "shareholders" brings up issues: what is meant by "shareholder"? The pension fund that wants steady dividend payments for 3 decades? The hedge fund that wants a meteoric rise in share prices in 3 years? The day trader that's trying to cash in on a meme in 3 days? There is no (single) Platonic "shareholder" that a company's directors can aim to be best at: there are a variety of people holding stock for different reasons. See concept of "shareholder heterogeneity".
Was John Sculley doing the right thing by going for maximum profits and shares prices when he was CEO of Apple (and kicked Steve Jobs out)? How that'd work out for AAPL in the 1990s? How has focusing on financials gone for Boeing (since they bought out McDonnel–Douglas)? How did all the stuff that Jack Welch did at GE work out?
It would be crazy not to do share buybacks for a growing business.
Regardless any sort of legal principle, the fact is capitalism rewards exploitation. The more a company exploits, the more profit it can bring in. Whether that be worker or customer.
While it's not stated that way in business management courses, that's exactly how it's taught in a round about way. The entire business class is chasing after efficiency, how to do more with less. And their idols are the likes of Walmart who will shut down a store if anyone says "union" and who aggressively negotiates for tax breaks in every location where their stores go up.
But further, venture capitalists have learned that one of the most effective ways to extract capital is to purchase well respected brands and destroy their quality while sucking off every last bit of value before customers wise up to the impending death of a beloved brand (see Sears, KMart, and basically all of fast food at this point. Also, be prepared to see this in your vet, dentist, and retirement homes).
People make millions doing these awful things which is why they keep happening. It's simply a lot harder and less profitable to make a "good" company which makes good products and respects their customers. And if H-E-B ever sells to a 3rd party, exactly the same thing will happen to them in a heartbeat.
In the short run, that doesn't seem worth arguing with.
It isn't clear whether or not it is really true in the long run. If shareholders (and courts) demanded the long view, it's equally unclear if the exploitation approach could really have taken hold.
It's worked great for walmart for several decades now.
And the venture capitalists continue to use the plunder from prior pillaging to continue the exploit train.
And further when a company achieves monopoly or near monopoly status, it becomes nearly impossible for a competitor to knock them off their perch.
The unfortunate thing is for the people engaged in exploitation this is a great long term strategy. A CEO that does this can almost always land another job as a CEO for another company to rinse and repeat the process. See Mark Hurd.