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With a goal to provide “good merchandise, appreciative service and low prices,” Charles Hyde (1883-1970) and David Vredenburg (1884-1949) opened a small store in Beaconsfield, Iowa, in 1930. The store was leased only a few weeks before the stock market crash of October 1929. The two men began calling their operation Hyde & Vredenburg in 1933.
At the start of the decade, a new type of store was opened in Centerville, Iowa, where company president Dwight Vredenburg also served as store manager. This store offered customers the newly invented shopping cart, self-service, and a frozen food case. At the end of the decade, again in Centerville, Hy-Vee opened its first supermarket outside of town.
In 1952, a contest was held to rename the stores which were operating under the names “Supply Store” or “Service Store,” preceded by the name of the town. The winning name, Hy-Vee, was formed from a contraction of the
co-founders’ last names Hyde and Vredenburg.
The Employees’ Trust Fund was established in 1960, enabling all eligible employees to share in the ownership of the company. It was the beginning of Hy-Vee’s long history of being known as an employee-owned business.
Hy-Vee reached a number of store milestones in the 1970s. The company opened its 100th store in Keokuk, Iowa. It also entered three new states: South Dakota in 1975 with a store in Brookings; Nebraska in 1977 with a store in Norfolk; and Illinois in 1979 with a store in Macomb.
1982 was the first billion-dollar sales year for Hy-Vee. In 1983 the 150th store opened in Lincoln, Neb. Perishable Distributors of Iowa Inc. was created in 1982 to provide fresh meat, fish, and seafood products. The same year, Hy-Vee entered the Lincoln and Omaha markets with a group purchase of stores.
In the 1990s, Hy-Vee diversified its operations through the development or purchase of several subsidiaries. Lomar Distributing, Inc., became a part of Hy-Vee in 1990 to provide specialty- and gourmet-imported items to both Hy-Vee stores and other businesses.
In this decade, Hy-Vee entered 11 new cities and added new locations in cities with existing stores. The company entered the Twin Cities market in 2015, with the opening of stores in New Hope and Oakdale, Minn.
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