John McIntyre from Hy-Vee’s Wine and Spirits Department provided an overview of Hy-Vee’s store operations with a department-by-department description of services offered. He highlighted the fact that Hy-Vee is employee-owned with a focus on putting the customer’s needs above all else.
They source locally when possible, and prepare all of their various fresh-food offerings on-site every day including their sushi, Italian food, Chinese food, and new charcuterie offerings. Additionally, their meat department employs full-time butchers and operates like your traditional butcher shop.
Hy-Vee employs a full-time in-store dietitian who works with customers to do meal planning and design, working with customer dietary restrictions and goals and are, in-fact, the nation’s single largest employer of dietitians.
Their on-line ordering system has been heavily used by the community and they continue to do all of your shopping for you, readying your groceries for store pick-up or delivering them to your front door without additional charge and while still allowing you to earn the same FuelSaver Rewards as in-store purchases.
They are launching a new marketing effort this year which will see the removal of their ads from newspapers and the launch of a new direct-to-consumer mailing on a monthly basis. Hy-Vee is well positioned to continue their successes in the local community and they look forward to hosting a Rotary event in the future should the club choose.