History
1980
1982 was the first billion dollar sales year for Hy-Vee. In 1983 the 150th store opened in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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.
Hy-Vee began operations in its seventh state, Kansas, in 1988 with the opening of a store in Overland Park. The first combination food and drug store – referred to in the industry as a combo store - opened in 1985 at Lincoln, Nebraska on Old Cheney Road. An experiment with warehouse-type stores began in 1980 with the Save-U-More stores; the format was discontinued in 2001. Electronic scanners were introduced in 1980 when the Dubuque, Iowa, Save-U-More store opened.
 |
| The Des Moines, Iowa, Number 1 store, which opened in 1986 in a new building at Harding Road. |
Expanding services to customers included video rentals (1984), bank branches in stores (1984) and pizza (1989). The first company-wide ad appeared in 1981. In 1984 Hy-Vee made national news when it became the second store in the nation to offer customers the use of a debit card to pay for their purchases.
The second private-label, an economical line of products, first called Lots of Value and later renamed Midwest Country Fare in 1998, debuted in 1987.
From 1989 to 1999, Hy-Vee operated a chain of convenience stores called Heartland Pantry.
In 1983, the company, which had been in business for 45 years, elected only its second president, Ron Pearson. In 1989, when his predecessor Dwight Vredenburg retired, Pearson was elected chief executive officer and chairman of the board. Also in 1989, the company’s first history book, The Family of Hy-Vee, was published and the first free-standing floral department opened.
At the end of 1989, there were 173 stores and approximately 23,000 employees.
