Grocery stores can be bland, forgettable, and downright joyless. Not if you’re in Texas. Here, H-E-B is sacred. With a loyal customer base and a brand identity that wraps itself unapologetically in Texas pride, H-E-B isn’t just a store. It’s an experience. Texans don’t just shop there; we brag about shopping there. It’s inspired memes, aisle-by-aisle TikTok videos, even merch.

And a lot of that loyalty is earned.

“It’s the culture, man,” says Joseph Trousdale, CEO of PhoLicious and winner of the 2023 H-E-B Quest for Texas Best. “When you walk into an H-E-B, it’s unlike any other grocery store in Texas. You’re just hit with this at-home feel. It’s like Buc-ee’s—you think of Texas, you think of Buc-ee’s and H-E-B.”

Texans’ kinship with the brand runs deeper than shelf tags and clean aisles. That’s because H-E-B isn’t trying to be everything to everyone—it’s trying to be everything to Texans.

H-E-B knows its audience and builds around them. That means highlighting local brands and businesses. It also means creating robust ways to support up-and-coming entrepreneurs: The annual Quest for Texas Best competition is a showcase for small-company founders who dream of making it big in the store’s aisles.

Trousdale’s instant noodle brand is a perfect example. Born out of a pandemic need and rooted in his Vietnamese family’s weekly tradition, PhoLicious went from a home kitchen to every H-E-B in Texas—and even into Mexico (the only location with outposts outside Texas)—after winning the competition. “They gave us a full shelf at eye level, which was huge to show their support and belief in our product,” Trousdale says.

Shelf space was just the start. H-E-B backed PhoLicious with business training, food safety courses, and helped scale their production. For a small company producing 3,000 bowls a day at the time, those resources made it possible to jump to 15,000—and do it safely, consistently, and on their own terms. Trousdale says that kind of support, given to entrepreneurs starting with nothing, was essential to how they’ve grown as a company. “Their fast payment of invoices definitely helps, too,” he adds with a laugh.

Lisa Helfman, managing director of public affairs for H-E-B Houston, says the selection process for local products is intentionally rigorous.

“We get hundreds and hundreds of items sent to us to go on our shelves,” Helfman says. “It’s this balance of trying to help new suppliers, because we love new people that get into the business, and balancing that with our customer demand.”

Helfman emphasizes that this approach includes nurturing diverse suppliers, not just established brands. She points to H-E-B’s supplier diversity team, which offers tools like table talks with industry experts and special training sessions for small businesses that need help transitioning from kitchen to commercial scale.

The result is a store that feels alive with regional flavor. In Houston, that might mean locally made hot sauces, Cajun spice blends, or Vietnamese iced coffee kits. The company’s private brands—like H-E-B Select Ingredients, H-E-B Organics, Higher Harvest by H-E-B, and Hill Country Fare—also compete directly with national names in price and quality. They’re also smart with marketing. The store brands look like appealing options rather than cheap knockoff versions. Take the Horchata Crisps and Tres Leches cereals, for example, or the cheddar Lone Stars, H-E-B’s not-so-subtle Goldfish stand-in.

And the made-in-house tortillas, largely considered the best grocery store tortillas in the US, have such a cult following that some expats regularly stuff their suitcases with several bags on trips home.

For all its polish and precision, H-E-B has no plans to take its talents beyond state lines. “We are Texans who like to take care of Texans,” Helfman says. “We still have a lot to do in Texas and we are going to keep taking care of Texans.”

And that’s why Texans love H-E-B. It’s not just the best grocery store in the country. It’s ours.