Texas grocer H-E-B finally rolls out digital tap-to-pay services

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It's about time, H-E-B. Photo courtesy of H-E-B

Texas' favorite grocery store has some good news for shoppers who have a habit of forgetting their wallets. H-E-B is starting a phased rollout for digital tap-to-pay services, starting in San Antonio before spreading to the rest of the chain's stores.

The rollout began Monday, October 7. A release says it'll take "about a week" to spread to all stores in the region before making it ways across Texas. Although it is not known which stores will add the service on what date, the rollout includes all H-E-B stores, including Mi Tienda, H-E-B's Mexican grocery store that has locations in Houston.

With tap to pay, shoppers will finally be able to use smartphone-based systems such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay, as well as tapping a physical card.

Payments can be made with those apps, or "digital wallets," at cash registers and self-checkout lanes, as well as restaurants and pharmacies within H-E-B stores. They won't be accepted right away at H-E-B fuel pumps, but customers can use them to pay for gas if they bring their phones to the fuel station payment window.

This isn't exactly cutting-edge technology; Google Wallet launched in 2011, leading the market, and was followed by Apple Pay in 2014. But it's not ubiquitous either. In 2023, a poll by Forbes Advisor found that barely more than half of respondents used digital wallets more than traditional forms of payment.

H-E-B is on a bit of a payment revolutionizing kick, also launching a debit card in 2022 and a partnership in August of 2024 with the H-E-B-owned delivery service Favor for its fastest order fulfillment yet. Central Market and Joe V’s Smart Shop, two other H-E-B brands, also recently launched tap to pay.

“At H-E-B, we’re always exploring a broad range of technologies to enhance how customers shop and pay for products,” H-E-B vice president Ashwin Nathan said in a statement. “This has been one of the most requested services we have received from our customers and partners, and we are excited to now make this popular technology available at all our H-E-B locations.”

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Charles Butt has provided funding for a permanent scholarship fund. Photo courtesy of Texas State History Museum Foundation

H-E-B leader gifts $5 million to historic Houston-area university for future students

HEB and PVAMU

The leader of the Lone Star State’s beloved H-E-B has bestowed a monumental gift upon a historic Houston-area university.

On November 17, Prairie View A&M University announced that H-E-B chairman Charles Butt — one of America’s favorite CEOs and member of one of Texas’ richest families — has donated $5 million to create Founders Scholarships for incoming PVAMU students.

“The $5 million gift will provide a permanent endowment to support students today and in the coming years,” a release notes. “Initially generating approximately $200,000 a year for scholarships, the fund will grow significantly in coming years, making even more available to support students.”

The scholarships will be available to students from public high schools in Texas graduating in the top quartile of their class, the release says. They must be incoming first-year students, enrolled in a full-time course load, and as scholarship recipients, they will benefit from “enrichment opportunities unique to their [Founders Scholarships] cohort.”

Scholarship disbursements will begin in fall 2022, a spokesperson confirms; the number of initial scholarships available has not been revealed.

“Charles Butt has been amazingly generous to our university. He has shown time and time again that he genuinely cares about the opportunities afforded to students at PV. We are indebted to him for his grace and his humanity,” says Ruth Simmons, president of PVAMU, in the release.

Prairie View A&M University is the second-oldest public institution of higher learning in the state and is one of Texas’ historically Black universities. It is located approximately 50 miles northwest of Houston and has a current enrollment of more than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

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H-E-B plans to offer COVID-19 vaccines once they're available. Photo courtesy of BCM

H-E-B to distribute COVID-19 vaccines in Houston stores

Calling the Shots

As a pair of COVID-19 vaccines await emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Texas' largest grocer is prepping for the vaccines' unprecedented rollout.

San Antonio-based H-E-B announced its pharmacies will administer the COVID-19 vaccine to Texans once it's available to the general public.

"At H-E-B, the health and safety of Texans is our top priority," the company noted in a release posted December 3. "As a trusted source for all routine childhood and adult immunizations, H-E-B pharmacies will partner with the federal and state government to administer the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to the general public, following the CDC distribution schedule."

Though it's unclear when H-E-B will receive the vaccine doses and which company's vaccine —Moderna, the Pfizer/BioNTech, or otherwise — will be available through the grocer, health-focused organizations and businesses like H-E-B are preparing for the massive distribution, which could begin as soon as 24 hours after the FDA gives its approval.

The goal of Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's plan to help develop, make, and distribute millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Americans, is "to deliver safe vaccines that work, with the first supply becoming available before the end of 2020," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC also notes once a vaccine is approved and released, there may not be enough doses available for all U.S. adults, though supplies will increase over time and "all adults should be able to get vaccinated later in 2021."

The CDC further states that vaccine doses purchased with taxpayer money will be distributed to Americans for free. However, vaccine providers can charge an administration fee for providing the shot.

It's unclear how many doses each store will receive and whether the company plans to distribute the vaccine through its pharmacy drive-thrus, at onsite pop-up medical tents, or solely from its in-store pharmacies.

"We do have all H-E-B pharmacies registered and ready to administer the vaccine," says Leslie Sweet, H-E-B's director of public affairs in the Central Texas region. "We will follow the prescribed allocation schedule as prescribed by [the Department of State Health Services]. We do not yet have a specific date or allocation number to share."

H-E-B pharmacies throughout the state already have some safety measures in place because of COVID-19 concerns, including allowing customers to prepay for prescriptions on the phone prior to picking them up or have their prescriptions delivered for free, and offering no-contact pickup and delivery of prescriptions through its pharmacy drive-thrus.

Additionally, H-E-B says it is continuing to take steps to protect its customers and employees during the pandemic.

"We're going above and beyond our already stringent sanitation standards, cleaning and disinfecting pharmacy counters, waiting areas, and drive-thru surfaces at a higher frequency," the grocer notes in its recent release. "Our pharmacy partners are practicing proper hand-washing throughout the day, and disinfecting and wiping down commonly used surfaces. We've also installed acrylic barriers and provided masks and gloves for all pharmacy partners. … As always, your health and safety is of the utmost importance to us. Together, we can slow the spread."

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Houston-born Matt Mullenweg joined the Greater Houston Partnership for a fireside chat on his tech company Automattic's success of distributed work. Photo via ma.tt

Tech entrepreneur and Houston native shares why flexibility is the future of work

distributed work

The pandemic and the measures companies have taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have opened employers eyes to non-traditional ways of working. An increased percentage of the workforce pivoted to remote working this year — in some cases, this was the first time employees were allowed to work from home.

But not having a traditional office setup is far from new to Houston native Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress. He started his company with remote team members basically from day one. In a virtual fireside chat with Scott McClelland, president of H-E-B Food & Drug, for Greater Houston Partnership's Houston NEXT: An ERG Summit last month, Mullenweg describes why he feels confident that a remote — or distributed, has he defines it — workforce is the future.

"Words are really important, and when I hear the word 'remote,' I think there's a central office and then there's someone who's not part of it," Mullenweg says during the chat. "So, we were trying to think of something that captured the fact that we were close to each other in our work — we're just not physically in the same place most of the time. 'Distributed' is what we came up with."

For Mullenweg, this way of running his business was advantageous for the company at its founding in 2000. Since those early days, Automattic, WordPress's parent company, has raised around $700 million in venture funding and made around 20 acquisitions. This success, Mullenweg says, is in part due to distributed work.

"All of this is designed to create a really robust network so that the work can continue regardless of location or anything," Mullenweg says on his workforce structure. "This especially during the early days, allowed us to work two or three times faster than our competitors because when they were doing five days of work a week, we were doing 15 days of work a week."

Mullenweg's plan for distributed work has been the subject a series of blogs, a podcast, and even a TED Talk. As passionate as he is that it is the future of the workforce, he realizes there's a process to getting there, and it's going to take time. He explains a five-tiered process that focuses on strategic culture changes and tech optimization.

"I think you need to have a culture and a way of working that allows people who aren't physical co-present with their colleagues to be productive," Mullenweg says. "The truth is not every company is there yet."

While Mullenweg always believed the rise of distributed work would reach milestones throughout his lifetime, the pandemic might be accelerating crucial steps toward the growth of this type of workforce. Especially since, as Mullenweg explains, this isn't the last major event that's going to occur and prevent in-person work.

"We're all hoping COVID to be gone as soon as possible, but this isn't the last thing like this. I'm sure there are going to be other issues that require us to be more decentralized in the future," Mullenweg says. "If you can get good at that as an organization, you'll be primed to succeed in the coming decades as a business."

Ultimately, distributed work has a lot of potential in the modern workforce, and the structure can do wonders for business advancement as well as employee moral.

"One thing we've found is that when people are really happy and fulfilled, they bring their best selves to work — they're more creative and have more energy," Mullenweg says.

Houston NEXT: An ERG Summit - Fireside Chat with Matt Mullenwegwww.youtube.com

H-E-B is ringing up a new accolade. Photo courtesy

Equipped with online and in-app ordering, Texas grocer named No. 1 for delivery

DOING MORE

Widely praised for its response to the ongoing pandemic, Texas-based grocery chain H-E-B's cart has once again been filled with kudos.

In a study by market research and mystery shopping firm Ipsos, H-E-B ranked first for grocery delivery among U.S. retailers, with a 99 percent accuracy rate. At No. 2 in the grocery delivery category was Austin-based Whole Foods Market, which achieved a 95 percent accuracy rate.

For the study, mystery shoppers across the country rated various retailers on the quality of their buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS), curbside, and delivery services. Ipsos conducted 150 mystery shops per retailer across these three categories.

"Use of BOPIS and curbside pickup has increased for 78 percent of shoppers since COVID-19 began, and 69 percent expect to continue using it at the same or higher levels after the pandemic subsides," Carlos Aragon, vice president of U.S. channel performance at Ipsos, says in an October 9 release. "As we continue to see the adoption and usage of these new digital offers rise and continue to stick, it is important that brands have the mechanism to ensure they deliver a seamless and safe customer experience for these new users."

To promote social distancing, H-E-B rolled out two-hour delivery in April, eliminating the need for customers to interact.

"With Texans relying on delivery now more than ever, it is our duty to support more of our communities across the state, as quickly as possible," Jag Bath, Favor's CEO and H-E-B's chief digital officer, said in an April release.

To accommodate two-hour delivery for H-E-B customers, Favor undertook a statewide expansion. The grocery chain rolled out its home delivery option in 2018, the same year that H-E-B bought Favor.

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Grand prize winner, Traci Johannson, 3 Sons Foods; Jody Hall, H-E-B; George Johannson; Winell Herron, H-E-B; Luke and Ayden Johannson; James Harris, H-E-B. Photo courtesy of H-E-B

Houston startup claims HEB award and heads for shelves

Food fix

Five homegrown Texas businesses are enjoying Lone Star State-sized bragging rights after a big win on August 8. The entrepreneurs are the collective winners of H-E-B's sixth-annual Primo Picks Quest for Texas Best contest, which recognizes the most innovative products. Collectively, the winners earn $80,000 in prizes, and, just as important, coveted shelf space in H-E-Bs across the state.

A Houston family leads the way, joining winners from Austin; San Antonio; Woodway; and Atlanta, Texas. Houston's 3 Sons Foods won a grand prize of $25,000 and featured placement as a Texas Primo Pick for Diablo Verde Sauce, a creamy cilantro offering. The company is owned by and operated by Traci Johannson and her three young sons: George (11), Luke (14), and Ayden (16). A portion of Diablo Verde sales goes to the International Rhino Foundation to help stop the illegal poaching of rhinos, according to a release.

First place honors — and a $20,000 prize — go to Austin's Courtney Ray Goodson for her Uncle Ray's Peanut Brittle. Inspired by her great uncle Ray's 35-year-old recipe, Goodson's offerings include Bacon Pecan, Butternut, Pecan, and classic Peanut Brittle.

Hailing from Woodway, Texas, Derek Newball landed second place and $15,000 for his EVOKE collagen drink. Capitalizing on the collagen drink trend, Newball's coconut-based products are meant to benefit skin, hair, joints, and bones, and come in coconut, mandarin coconut, and pineapple coconut flavors.

To the Moon Family Foods, based in Atlanta, Texas, tied for third place (a $10,000 prize) with its To the Moon Family Foods Nutty-Carrot Spread. Creators Kay Lynn York and Joan Reece combine carrots, pecans, and "mouthwatering" spices for a spread to be used on sandwiches; meats; or even rolled in balls, coated, and fried.

Tying with To the Moon at third place (and a $10,000 prize) is San Antonio's Grain4Grain Low-Carb Flour and Mix. Owners Yoni Medhin and Matt Mechtly recycle spent grains from local microbreweries to make a low-carb, high-protein, high-fiber flour. For every pound of flour sold, Grain4Grain donates a pound to those in need.

The 2019 Quest for Texas Best competition drew more than 800 entries from nearly 140 cities and towns across the state after a call for entries in February of this year. Through two qualifying rounds, submissions were judged on taste and flavor, customer appeal, value, uniqueness, market potential, and differentiation from current products at most H-E-B stores.

"Each of these 20 competitors displayed unprecedented creativity, style, and commitment to providing outstanding, unique products for our consideration," said James Harris, director of diversity & inclusion and supplier diversity at H-E-B, in a statement. "In fact, the entries were so good that we ended up with five winners this year. We are delighted to share that diversity and ingenuity with our customers across the state."

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.

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New Houston platform Same Day Reels launches for on-demand content creation

In The Moment

If an event doesn't happen on Instagram, did it even really happen? In today's social media-driven age of branding and audience engagement, the answer increasingly is no.

Houston entrepreneur Karen De Amat is looking to fill the online content creation needs of companies with her new venture, Same Day Reels, which launched in early August. It will serve as a platform to connect companies and brands with talent that can help turn an event into a viral moment as it is happening.

"Events move quickly, and social media moves even faster,” said De Amat. “Same Day Reels was built to help brands capture the moment while it still matters. We are creating a more efficient way for businesses and creators to work together. Brands need content faster, and creators need more opportunities to turn their talent into real work. Same Day Reels brings those needs together.”

The company is focused on adding livestreams and concurrent short video content to "activations, launches, fundraisers, grand openings, conferences, hospitality experiences, and private celebrations." Such content can significantly increase the visibility of a product or brand according to digital marketing brands like Wyzowl, whose data found 63 percent of people in 2026 prefer to learn about new products via short video.

Packages offered by Same Day Reels will include filming, editing, and publishing content within hours of the targeted event.

De Amat says that her content creation platform will be a way to preserve the excitement of events and launches by enshrining them with immediate social media-driven memories.

“Event content is no longer just something you post after the fact,” De Amat said. “It is part of how people experience, remember and share the moment.”

Previously, De Amat is also the founder and CEO of Social Behavior, an influencer marketing company she launched from her home in 2014. It quickly garnered an array of clients and thrust De Amat into the spotlight, including numerous appearances on Fox 26's The Isiah Factor. Influencer Marketing Hub named her one of the top CEOs of influencer marketing companies in Houston in 2025.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Bristol Myers Squibb to build $2.3B Houston pharma manufacturing campus

coming soon

New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. has officially named Houston as the home of its new state-of-the-art manufacturing site.

The 60,000-square-foot facility represents a $2.3 billion investment, according to a news release. It is expected to create 500 skilled jobs and will be located in Houston's Generation Park.

BMS first announced that it was considering Houston among 16 other cities for the facility in May. The new hub will manufacture small molecule, biologic and antibody-drug conjugates and is part of a $40 billion commitment to invest in the United States over five years. Construction is slated to begin next year, with the facility coming online in 2030.

"We're building the domestic manufacturing capabilities needed to deliver the next generation of medicines and support future scientific breakthroughs. Houston and the state of Texas offer the talent, infrastructure, and partnership needed to help bring that vision to life," Christopher Boerner, CEO and board chair of BMS, said in the release.

The new facility will feature a modular, multi-modal design, which will allow the company to reconfigure and add to its manufacturing capabilities over time. BMS says it expects the facility to "(grow) in scale and capability well beyond its opening configuration."

"Our decision to build this state-of-the-art manufacturing campus in Houston, Texas, reflects our confidence in the region’s ability to support a world-class, digitally advanced supply operation,” Karin Shanahan, EVP and chief supply chain and operations officer of BMS, added in the release. “This facility is designed to deliver the speed, quality, and reliability that patients depend on, combining flexible, modular manufacturing with advanced digital capabilities to ensure consistent supply across multiple modalities. It strengthens our ability to operate with resilience and positions us to reliably deliver medicines to patients today while adapting future demands.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shared that the state has granted BMS a $4.89 million Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) grant for the project. TEF grants, administered by the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office, support business relocation or expansion projects that create "new, good-paying jobs in the community and attract significant new capital investment to the state." The development is also a qualified project under the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) program.

“Texas is a global hub for life sciences, where today’s innovations shape the future of healthcare,” Abbott said in a news release. “This $2.3 billion investment by Bristol Myers Squibb in the dynamic biotech ecosystem in Houston is a testament to the depth of our skilled workforce and the pipeline of talent coming through our nation-leading technical colleges and research universities. With lower operating costs and easy access to markets across the U.S. and the world, Texas drives affordability for consumers.”

"Bristol Myers Squibb’s announcement is a tremendous win for Texas and the Houston region, further reinforcing our position as a premier destination for life sciences and advanced manufacturing,” added Greater Houston Partnership President and CEO Steve Kean.

Last fall, Eli Lilly and Co. selected Generation Park, a 4,300-acre, master-planned commercial district near Lake Houston, for its $6.5 billion manufacturing plant. More than 300 locations in the U.S. competed for the factory. Read more here.

Texas foundation makes massive $180M donation to Galveston hospital

historic gift

The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB) has accepted a staggering $130 million grant from the Sealy & Smith Foundation, which, combined with the $50 million that the foundation donated in 2025 to establish the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, is the largest bequest in UTMB history.

The grant will go to grow cardiovascular imaging, diagnosis, and treatment at UTMB by establishing an inpatient cardiovascular hub on the sixth floor of Jennie Sealy Hospital. In honor of the donation, the department is being renamed the Sealy Heart and Vascular Institute.

“The Sealy & Smith Foundation has a long history of investing in initiatives that transform health care for the people of Galveston and beyond,” said John Kelso, president of The Sealy & Smith Foundation Board of Directors. “We believe the Sealy Heart & Vascular Institute has the potential to redefine cardiovascular care in our region by bringing together exceptional physicians, advanced technology, innovative research and a commitment to improving patient outcomes. This additional investment reflects our confidence in UTMB’s vision and our belief that the Institute will have a lasting impact for generations to come.”

The Sealy & Smith Foundation was established in 1922 by John Sealy II and his sister Jennie Sealy Smith. Bolstered by the Sealy fortune built on shipping, oil, banking, and railroads, the Foundation has donated more than $1.2 billion to UTMB over the last century, linking the family legacy to healthcare, teaching, and research. It was John Sealy Sr. who contributed the initial $50,000 to build a hospital on the island, which opened right alongside the new medical school created by the state legislator in what was then Texas's largest and most economically powerful city.

Since then, the Foundation has helped grow UTMB into a world-class hospital. The cardiovascular care especially is well-regarded, making the 2025 Newsweek/Statista List of America's Best Hospitals.

“This extraordinary investment reflects The Sealy & Smith Foundation’s unwavering commitment to improving health and advancing medical excellence,” said Dr. Jochen Reiser, UTMB president and CEO of the UTMB Health System. “The partnership between UTMB and The Sealy & Smith Foundation is very strong. Built on generations of shared vision and trust, it continues to redefine what an academic health system can achieve. Together, we are building one of the nation’s premier cardiovascular programs integrating exceptional patient care, groundbreaking research, innovation and world-class education to improve the lives of patients throughout Texas and beyond.”

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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