WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – Employees of the 280-store Hy-Vee grocery chain have tipped numerous newsrooms to massive lay-offs at headquarters. Reports have been that half of the Hy-Vee customer care team, the private label team, and as many as 100 people in the tech support department were let go abruptly. There was no warning, tipsters said. In sympathy, some employees who were not laid off showed their outrage by quitting on the spot. The result: Disarray at corporate headquarters in West Des Moines and and at the corporate tech-support operation in nearby Grimes. The usually slick and media-responsive Hy-Vee public relations department was slow to respond to news media inquiries. Eventually spokesperson Tina Pothoff issued a statement: “Like every company, our employee needs ebb and flow to match our business.” She declined to confirm the extent of the layoffs.
Hy-Vee profile
The company has high-end stores in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin and had been rapidly expanding. New sites had been announced in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. Revenues last year were $12 billion. The chain has 88,000 employees in all. The company has roots in 1917 in Lamoni, Iowa. The name Hy-Vee was devised in a 1952 employee contest as a contraction of the names of early partners Charles Hyde and David Vredenburg.