No Store Did More: How H-E-B Became a Model of Emergency Preparedness

Inside H-E-B, executives and store managers alike promote a philosophy of corporate self-reliance, built around a mythology that dates back to the company’s founding in Kerrville in 1905. According to Connie Barrera, who manages the H-E-B Plus in Schertz, just north of San Antonio, this corporate culture gets inculcated in employees from the moment they first put on their name tags. “Some of it is storytelling and setting expectations,” she said. One possibly apocryphal story that gets passed around a lot involves an unfortunate warehouse worker in San Antonio who once failed to deliver water to Randolph Air Force Base during an emergency. The president of the company personally intervened. “It was made abundantly clear what [the employee’s] responsibility was,” Barrera said.

To be sure, H-E-B has faced challenges throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Until it was stabilized in June, the online system, through which customers can order groceries for curbside pickup or delivery, offered a spotty experience. That same month, as Governor Greg Abbott aggressively rolled back public safety measures, H-E-B stopped mandating that customers wear masks, citing the difficulty in enforcing such a rule without a statewide order. (When local officials in parts of Texas began imposing requirements in late June, H-E-B stores in those locations put mask rules back in place.) And the company’s temporary pay hike of $2 an hour was instituted after employees circulated an online petition demanding a raise, amid the dangers and privations of working long, grueling shifts during a pandemic. In early July, H-E-B employees were disappointed to learn that a generous temporary discount on groceries would be expiring. The next day, the company sent out an electronic coupon code for a free mango, a perk that some workers described as demeaning.

Despite the stumbles, H-E-B is proud of its track record: as other meat production facilities have become COVID-19 vectors, H-E-B’s plants have been almost completely disease-free. And unlike other large retailers—including Kroger, Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods—H-E-B maintains an online list of when each store last had an employee test positive. Most crucially, its supply chain remains strong, ensuring that shelves are stocked with staples.

But this story, unfortunately, isn’t over just yet. The pandemic has evolved from a new emergency demanding an immediate response to an evolving crisis that’s changing how Americans eat, work, and shop. With that comes a new challenge: How does H-E-B ensure that stores are open, stocked, and safe in a world where the current crisis could drag on indefinitely—and another crisis could come at any time?

Photograph by Tamir Kalifa

For customers, the supermarket experience has dramatically transformed over the past several months. Early in the pandemic, admission to stores was regulated, with shoppers standing in a line outside, six to eight feet apart, waiting to be allowed in. In March and April, the toilet paper aisle looked like a Soviet-era state-run food store. As the summer has progressed, customers have grown used to paying more for meat. The employees at the register wear masks and stand behind a plexiglass shield. Customers are reminded to use hand sanitizer and are required to wear masks.

For some shoppers, dealing with all of that seemed too risky or stressful, which led to a boom in online grocery orders. Those systems, which had been in place at various supermarket chains, including H-E-B, got a serious workout in the early days of the pandemic. Jag Bath, H-E-B’s chief digital officer, told Texas Monthly in April that the company was caught off guard by the shift. “We are seeing increases in demand for curbside and home delivery that, quite frankly, we were not expecting to see for a number of years,” Bath said. Customers often experienced long waits to schedule pickups and deliveries, frequent shortages on products, deliveries, and only partially fulfilled orders. (You might find yourself with hot dogs but no buns, for example.)

Even as H-E-B’s digital and e-commerce services have improved, the next crisis is looming: threats to the supply chain. The runs on yeast, flour, and toilet paper have largely come to an end, at least for now, but circumstances could change. “The public responds to the information they receive, so the consumer might start feeling a little bit of anxiety, like, ‘I need to go buy some more groceries because something’s happening,’ ” said Doug Baker, the vice president of industry relations for the supermarket trade organization Food Marketing Institute. “We saw that happening all the way through this crisis, where we had unprecedented demand, then it started to abate and come down, and then the news cycle spikes demand.”

As the summer harvest season got underway, cases of COVID-19 began ticking up in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas, states that collectively produce about 85 percent of the nation’s vegetables. Outbreaks at meat production facilities have led to shutdowns, consumer panic buying, and an increase in meat prices. In early May, more than a thousand Wendy’s restaurants stopped serving hamburgers because of beef shortages, and by the end of that month, U.S. pork production for 2020 was down 6 percent from the previous year. So far, H-E-B has maintained its stock of meat products, but the spread of COVID-19—or another crisis—could further disrupt availability.

The nightmare scenario for Texas this summer could be an uncontrolled outbreak of COVID-19 across the state as a hurricane bears down on the Gulf Coast. If a storm were to make landfall in Texas, folks on the coast might find themselves looking back with nostalgia to the days when there was just a pandemic to worry about.

“There would be a demand along the coastal areas for some of the same product types that would be demanded for a surge in the virus as well. That would be the most challenging scenario,” said Otto, H-E-B’s chief operating officer.

In June, Justen Noakes led another tabletop exercise to game out such a scenario. (This time, the team met via Zoom, with dozens of participants from across the company.) Noakes came away optimistic. Even in the event of a hurricane, H-E-B would be able to keep sought-after essentials on shelves across Texas and also meet customer needs in areas affected by the storm, all while maintaining safety measures for employees and shoppers. In recent months, H-E-B has invested in more warehouse space, purchased additional trailers for hauling products, and increased capacity in its manufacturing facilities. Noakes said that many of “the lessons learned from this round of COVID” are now just part of running a business that has to be ready for natural disasters at any time. Hurricane? Pandemic? The doors must stay open.

The past few turbulent months have been more than just a logistical challenge for H-E-B. They have put the company’s philosophy—that customers should see it as more than just a grocery store—to the test. When H-E-B rolled out its slogan, “No Store Does More,” a decade ago, it may not have anticipated just how high it had set the bar.

This article originally appeared in the August issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “No Store Did More.” Subscribe today.