H-E-B Ranks No. 20 on Forbes' Best Companies

The San Antonio grocer was the top Texas-headquartered company on Forbes' 2027 America's Best Companies list of 500 firms.

Updated on Nov. 15, 2026 in Business Strategy

Wide daylight photograph of a flat-roofed grocery building with a broad glass storefront and an empty parking lot under a bright Texas sky, with a single palm at the frame's edge. — H-E-B, the San Antonio grocer, ranked No. 20 on Forbes' 2027 America's Best Companies list of 500 firms, the top Texas-headquartered company on the list. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

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Forbes ranked H-E-B No. 20 on its 2027 America's Best Companies list, which featured 500 companies. Amazon ranked No. 1, Apple No. 2 and NVIDIA No. 3.

Why it matters

The ranking drew on customer and employee sentiment, financial performance, creditworthiness, cybersecurity and innovation, giving San Antonio's largest private employer an independent benchmark across those measures. For San Antonio readers, H-E-B's headquarters city now has a nationally recognized corporate standing.

H-E-B ranked No. 20 of 500 companies on Forbes' 2027 list, after placing No. 14 in 2026 and No. 19 among retail and wholesale firms on the Most Trusted Companies list. The weighting Forbes applied to each evaluation measure was not disclosed in the source.

The players

H-E-B

H-E-B is a Texas-based grocery chain founded in 1905 and headquartered in San Antonio, with over 450 stores across Texas and Mexico.

Forbes

Forbes is a business media company known for its annual corporate rankings, including the America's Best Companies list.

The details

Forbes evaluated thousands of large public and private companies and measured them on customer and employee sentiment, financial performance, creditworthiness, cybersecurity and innovation. H-E-B, founded in 1905 and headquartered in San Antonio, operates more than 450 stores across Texas and Mexico.

1905: H-E-B is founded.
2026: H-E-B ranks No. 14 on Forbes' America's Best Companies list and No. 19 on the Most Trusted Companies list for retail and wholesale.
2027: H-E-B ranks No. 20 on Forbes' America's Best Companies list.

Season Trajectory

H-E-B slipped from No. 14 on Forbes' 2026 America's Best Companies list to No. 20 in 2027, even as it remained the highest-ranked Texas-headquartered company on the list. The ranking is the company's most recent entry in a pair of Forbes rankings that also placed it No. 19 among retail and wholesale firms on the Most Trusted list.

Shoppers at H-E-B's more than 450 stores across Texas and Mexico are not directly affected by the ranking itself. The list reflects how the company's employee sentiment, financial performance and innovation compare with other large firms nationally.

The takeaway

A high ranking on an independent list reflects a company's standing across several measures at once, not any single factor. Readers interested in how large employers compare can review the full scoring categories published by Forbes.