Hy-Vee, Iowa’s largest private employer, ends employee-discount program

UPDATE: A Hy-Vee spokesperson reached out to Local 4 News on Tuesday and said the company is “revamping” its employee discount program.

“We are currently in the process of revamping the program with the goal to relaunch the benefit to our employees by mid-April,” the statement said, in addition to listing other employee benefits and mentioning the “fraudulent practices” that led to the program’s suspension. “Over the past several months, a significant uptick in the amount of users utilizing the Employee Discount who were not living in the same household or living in other cities was identified, in addition to other fraudulent practices and loopholes that were occurring within the program. The discrepancies found were significant enough to signal a much broader issue that needed to be addressed immediately.”

EARLIER UPDATE: Iowa’s largest private employer will no longer offer an employee discount to its workers.

For a while now, Hy-Vee employees have enjoyed a 10-percent discount on groceries, but that ends today.

In a video sent to employees on Friday, Hy-Vee Executive Vice President Georgia Van Gundy announced the company was ending this benefit due to an “increase in fraudulent practices.”

Van Gundy says management has discovered multiple employees sharing the discount with extended family and friends.

She says those employees will be contacted by management soon, but the discount will be canceled for all employees.

That number is more than 90,000.