This Grocery Chain Has the Best Reputation of Any Major Company in America

Mike Pomranz
Updated
Is there any survey Wegmans can’t finish at the top of?

Even if you don’t live in one of the six states that currently have a Wegmans—New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, for the record—you’ve likely still heard of the 90-plus location grocery chain. Wegmans constantly finds itself towards the top of surveys on things like customer experience and best workplaces. As a result, even if you’re the skeptical type, you probably have a preconceived notion that, at the very least, Wegmans is a decent place to shop. But the results of a new survey suggest that this love for Wegmans is even more colossal than we imagined: The grocer finished number one atop The Axios Harris Poll’s annual list of Corporate Reputation Rankings.

For the poll, over 6,000 people across the nation are surveyed to first nail down the 100 “most visible companies” in the country. From there, another group of over 18,000 Americans are interviewed to determine each company’s reputation ranking. Seven companies achieved “excellent” reputation scores, including two grocery chains: Wegmans at number one, and Publix in the sixth spot. (Amazon, Patagonia, L.L. Bean, Walt Disney, and Samsung rounded out the group.) And of course, someone has to finish at the bottom: Only two employers had “critical” scores: The U.S. Government, which finished dead last, and, slightly above it, Phillip Morris. (Fitting the theme, Trump Org. finished one step higher at #98.)

Two other food brands of note were McDonald’s and Chik-fil-A, both of which were included on the list of biggest declines. McDonald’s dropped from #59 to #88; Chick-fil-A dropped from #4 to #22.

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“Supermarkets are the biggest winners in the fresh and healthy revolution,” the report states. “Wegmans ranks #1 this year and leads top 10 rankings in Culture, Ethics and Citizenship, recognized in local communities for hiring local talent, fostering the livelihood of its workforce and representing a local reprieve from a toxic culture. Not far behind, Publix (#6), Kroger (#21) and Aldi (#23) ranked high for Trust, Ethics, Culture.”

The report also offers another interesting breakdown: Wegmans finished number one for three of the four generations listed: Millennials, Boomers, and Silents. But for Gen X, Wegmans isn’t even in the top ten. Maybe if the grocery chain just pumped more Pearl Jam into the stores, it could have scored even better.