How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024) • Hacker News Board

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#41

Post by doodlebugging » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

steve-atx-7600 wrote: post #30

doodlebugging wrote: post #23

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…

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 h…

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#42

Post by cogman10 » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #37

cogman10 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cla…

> 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.

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#43

Post by bell-cot » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #21

bell-cot wrote: post #2

> 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" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co .

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.

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#44

Post by FastRodent » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#45

Post by doodlebugging » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

viccis wrote: post #29

jmalicki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#46

Post by cityofdelusion » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#47

Post by evilduck » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

rottencupcakes wrote: post #11

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’…

Buc-ee’s ain’t cheap. But people pay it.

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#48

Post by doodlebugging » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

doodlebugging wrote: post #23

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…

> 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 t…

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.

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#49

Post by cellular » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

asciimov wrote: post #17

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 p…

Does he remember HEB camp?

Re: How H-E-B became Texas' most beloved brand (2024)

#50

Post by horns4lyfe » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

cityofdelusion wrote: post #46

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…

Ya, central market was the only store close to me for a while and it crushed my budget, but was very worth it