Hy-Vee Pivoted Strategy to Integrate Health and Retail
The regional grocer is leveraging its pharmacy, banking, and data capabilities to drive customer loyalty.
Updated on Sept. 24, 2026 in Business Strategy
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Hy-Vee CEO Jeremy Gosch outlined a comprehensive strategy at the Groceryshop event in Las Vegas, focusing on deepening the company's health-focused service model. This multi-sector approach integrates retail with banking, telemedicine, and pharmacy benefit management to diversify revenue streams.
Why it matters
By expanding beyond traditional groceries into primary care and wellness, the company seeks to commoditize its core business while increasing customer stickiness through health services. This strategy aims to overcome the stigma of higher prices at regional chains by offering value through integrated health outcomes.
The retailer has scaled its price-match program to 15,000 items and now targets a three-minute store pickup window, down from the current five-minute standard. It also aims to reduce digital shopping order time to five minutes using AI, down from an average of 40 minutes.
The players
Jeremy Gosch
CEO of Hy-Vee who is directing the company's shift toward an integrated health and retail business model.
Hy-Vee
A Midwest-based grocery chain that operates as a diversified enterprise with interests in banking, telemedicine, and pharmacy services.
Exemplar Care
A healthcare provider that partners with Hy-Vee to deliver primary care services to the retailer's customers.
The details
Hy-Vee is deploying a strategy that ties clinical outcomes to grocery shopping, utilizing in-store dietitians to incentivize healthy behaviors that mirror the success of its diabetic patient pilot program. Operationally, the company is using AI to accelerate its digital storefront, while utilizing its own bank and pharmacy benefit manager to create an end-to-end consumer ecosystem. This model forces a shift from volume-based food retail toward a services-led platform that competes on convenience and patient health data.
Timeline
Hy-Vee entered the e-commerce market in 2013.
The price match campaign was launched two years ago.
The retailer developed 1,400 new private brand items last year.
CEO Jeremy Gosch spoke at the Groceryshop event in September 2026.
Market Landscape
The move follows a broader industry trend toward the retail-as-healthcare model shift, where grocers increasingly integrate clinical services to capture recurring consumer spending. This strategy aligns with competitive efforts to turn storefronts into multipurpose hubs that utilize proprietary health data.
Operators should monitor whether the use of AI to slash digital order times successfully improves conversion rates, as this will set a new performance benchmark for competitors. Businesses should also track how non-traditional services like telemedicine impact foot traffic and basket size at existing retail locations.
The takeaway
Hy-Vee's transition to a health-integrated platform demonstrates how regional operators can use diverse service lines to build customer loyalty in a competitive market. Operators should analyze their own ancillary service capabilities to determine if they can provide measurable health outcomes that justify premium positioning.
Further reading
For more on evolving retail operational models, visit our Business Strategy section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Progressive Grocer.
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