How America’s Favorite Grocery Store, Hy-Vee, Got Its Name

USA Today asks its readers each year to vote for their favorite businesses in the 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards. You’re very familiar with two of the winning companies: Kwik Trip was named the best gas station in America, and Hy-Vee, which was recognized as the best grocery store in the country.

“A Helpful Smile in Every Aisle" isn't just a catchy advertising jingle. The Iowa-based grocery chain has been around for 95 years and is recognized for amazing customer service and its dedication to selling quality items.

The first store opened in Beaconsfield, Iowa, in 1930. That store wasn’t anything like the Hy-Vees you visit these days. It wasn’t even called Hy-Vee and it was a more of a general supply store than a supermarket.

For its first two decades the company’s stores were simply known as “Supply Store” or “Service Store.”

The company continued to expand with more locations and really morphed into the ‘supermarket’ we now know in the 1940s. At that time, stores started adding the recently invented shopping car along with self-service sections and a frozen food case.

Did you know grocery bags were invented in Minnesota? See other famous MN inventions below.

Today, Hy-Vee is a well known brand with nearly 300 retail stores across eight Midwestern states, including Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

But, it wasn’t until 1952 that the name Hy-Vee was born and the company didn't hire a marketing firm with focus groups or anything like that to come up with the new name.

The Iowa-based chain ran a naming content with employees and Hy-Vee was selected from all of the nominations – no word on what the person that submitted the winning name won.

The name was formed from a contraction of the co-founders' names Charles Hyde and David Vredenburg.