“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” So wrote Stephen Covey, an American educator, author, businessman, and speaker. Businesses rely on trust. So when revealing its 2024 survey of the most trustworthy businesses in the U.S., Newsweek prefaced their results with this: “Trust may be the most important dynamic between consumers and the companies they do business with—it affects decisions about where to shop, what to buy and even where to work.” Most trusted companies. How do businesses that RVers often deal with stack up?
Our breakdown of most trusted companies
Newsweek’s survey covered a lot of ground. Rather than publish every statistic, we looked at companies we thought were ones most often in the eye of our RVing readers. If a company doesn’t show up here, it may be that we simply don’t think on the same line as you do. Or it could be worse—your company may have done so poorly in terms of trust that it never appears on the list. Take heart, you can click here to see all the results for yourself.
Direct RV listings
To lead off, we’ll talk about companies directly related to RVing itself. We’ll list the company and ranking, their “business category,” and tell you how many businesses they were ranked against in their category.
At #19, THOR Industries is ranked among other “automotive & components” businesses. Winnebago trailed in at #22 in the same category. Despite there being a total of 40 businesses evaluated in this category, no other RV manufacturer made the list. Does that tell you something?
Stuff that supports your RV
So what about things that directly support the old RV? Here we go. Coming close to the top of list, with an eye on keeping you from getting lost, #5 in appliances and electronics goes to Garmin.
But then we change gears as #1 in automotive and components is awarded to Goodyear, a company you may never tire of. And if you need tires, then #9 in the same category goes to Discount Tire. Need to pull your trailer? #21 in this same category goes to Ford. Take a bow, Henry, no other truck firm made the ranks of the 24 total companies evaluated.
Stuff you might put in your RV
So what do you take with you on your RV trips? If you do any cooking, you may have those “live forever food storage containers” manufactured by Tupperware. The plastic box company takes #24 in the consumer goods category. There were 40 total listings here.
How did you buy all that stuff?
When you bought you Tupperware, or checked in at the last campground, you probably flashed your plastic. #1 on the list of financial services, Visa. And prestige doesn’t always translate to trust. American Express came in at #7. PayPal, the online money transfer service, takes #13. And if ever there were a fistfight between competitors, while Visa tops the list, Mastercard at least places at #23. A total of 38 financial services companies battled for these statistics.
Food and beverage—Do we need to “weigh in”?
But we have a gut feeling you like to eat. If the rankings are a true reflection of the American diet—shame on us! Only pulling us out of the quagmire of bad habits is Quaker Oats, ranking #1 in the food and beverage evaluation class. Open a can for your dinner? Reach for Campbell’s Soup, which rings in at #3. But it’s all downhill from there, as the munchy monsters in us come calling. #5, Hershey, will happily hang you with calories. All right, enough commentary. Here’s the rest of the food and beverage companies:
#6 General Mills
#7 The Coca-Cola Company
#17 Keurig Dr Pepper
#18 Frito-Lay
#19 J.M. Smucker Company
#22 Dreyer’s
#23 Hostess Brands
#24 Mars
#41 Tootsie Roll Industries, rolling out the 50 on the list in this category.
Grabbing groceries
Where do you go for groceries? An extended list of grocery and convenience stores shows #1 on the list as Publix. The rest follow:
#2 H-E-B
#3 Whole Foods Market
#4 WinCo Foods
#5 Kroger
#6 Sprouts Farmers Market
#7 The Fresh Market
#8 QuikTrip
#9 Stater Bros. Markets
#10 Smith’s
#11 Harris Teeter
#15 Raley’s Supermarkets
#16 Albertsons Companies
#26 Vons
#27 Smart and Final
#28 Casey’s
#29 Bashas’
#30 Fred Meyer
There were a total of 30 on this list.
General retailers ranked
Retail is big. You might have thought that Wally World would have appeared already, but, no, they’re tucked away with other retailers. At #2 on the list, it seems it’s America’s favorite internet shopping spot, with Amazon right there. Here are the rest of the retail runners:
#3 Costco
#4 Tractor Supply
#5 ACE Hardware
#6 PetSmart
#7 True Value
#9 The Home Depot
#11 Cabela’s
#14 DICK’S Sporting Goods
#15 Harbor Freight
#19 Love’s
#20 Hobby Lobby
#27 Target
#34 BJ’s Wholesale Club
And way down the list, at #47, Walmart. That’s not a ruling spot among retailers, but guess who checks in at #65, out of a total list of 66 retailers? Camping World, that’s who.
Keeping in touch
We’d be remiss if we were to leave out this group, in our techno-age. Here are the winners in software and telecommunications. High on the list of 38, #4 goes to Microsoft, with #16 handed off to Verizon. No other big-name telecommunications companies made the cut.
Techno hardware
You have to have something to run that software on. Here are the rankings for technology and hardware. It would be hard to beat Roku, at number 2. There’s so little muss and fuss with a Roku device.
And the balance?
#3 Intel
#6 Dell
#8 Apple
#17 HP, rounding out the list of 30.
Who brings you your stuff?
If you shop Amazon, no doubt you’ve had plenty of experience with the company topping the transport, logistics, and packaging category. Take a bow, Mr. Brown. #1 on the list is United Parcel Service. A tight Brown competitor? #3 goes to FedEx. These two were our interests on the list of 31 in this category.
Eating on the road—and other travel-related businesses
Finally, after a heavy meal, you’d think it’s time for dessert. In a sense, you’re right, as #3 on the list of travel, dining, and leisure goes to Krispy Kreme. But other food purveyors make the list, like Texas Roadhouse at #5, followed by the Cheesecake Factory at #10. But there are other, non-specific-to-food companies on this list:
#14 TravelCenters
#15 Dunkin’ (OK, food again)
#16 Starbucks
#19 Panera Bread
#23 Red Robin
#24 In-N-Out Burger
#25 Pizza Hut
#26 McDonald’s
#27 Domino’s Pizza
#28 Dutch Bros
#32 Wendy’s ending the list—and our story, with 32 total in this category.
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Thank you, Russ and Tina! Very interesting and very little to do with me. I stiil take satisfaction in being unlike most people. Certainly this extends to who I do and do not trust. I found it especially interesting that I recognized essentially none of the listed grocery stores. Have a great day and safe travels! 🙂
Whomever came up with the ranking of grocery chains must never have visited the West. Smith’s and Fred Meyer ARE the Kroger chains in TX, NM, NV, WA, OR, ID, MT, and AK. Kroger in other Western states–CA, AZ, CO, WY–are Fry’s, King Soopers, and City Market.
Steve, I’d agree with you about Smith’s and Fred Meyer as having great stores, but H.E.B. is special. I live in Seattle so can’t shop there, but when I have been in Texas, H.E.B. was my place!
Yup, H.E.B. has to be visited to be believed! What a store! When we were ‘stuck’ in Houston for a year we discovered H.E.B. and it made us lifetime lovers of that store. Too bad they’re not in northern Nevada . . .
As with others H.E.B. is tops. In most grocers the house brands are the cheap stuff (and I don’t just mean less expensive). At H.E.B. the quality of their house brand (including their H.E.B. owned sister Central Market) is typically equal and sometimes surprisingly better than national brand items, and less expensive. H.E.B. pays its employees better than most grocers, but when disaster strikes in Texas, H.E.B. maintains a fleet of vehicles to move food, food prep and staff to the disaster area on short notice. FYI, our house is in Michigan.
The rankings are interesting, unfortunately Tupperware is nearly bankrupt, and their stock price has lost 90+% of its value.
Not very relevant when only 1 of the 17 groceries are within a hundred miles of me
How could you possibly find any of these places? Not a Dollar General in the mix. So how is a person supposed to give directions?!?
“Despite there being a total of 40 businesses evaluated in this category, no other RV manufacturer made the list. Does that tell you something?”
Yes. It tells me that the few really good quality RV mfgs are very small in comparison and, if even researched in this ranking, couldn’t possibly garner enough inputs to register against the far lesser quality/service “giants.”
Thor brands or Outdoors RV and Northwoods Mfg? 🤔 Who builds better RVs and takes better care of their customers? I know what I would or would not buy.
I’d say they got Camping World right, but I would never put Thor above Winnebago.
Can’t imagine how Thor got a high rating.
I’m surprised Winn-Dixie and Trader Joe’s isn’t on that list.
Winn Dixie was bought out by Aldi. Trader Joes is plagued by too may recalls.
General Motors is #17.
Interesting survey. I looked at the complete list and found some curiosities. For example, Lowe’s a home improvement store is listed under “appliances and electronics” while Home Depot is listed under “retail”. Shouldn’t they be listed under the same industry? Also the three 800 pound gorillas manufacturing RVs are in order Thor, Forest River (a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) and Winnebago. Where is Forest River? Was it ignored because it is owned by Berkshire? Finally, I think a survey of most trustworthy companies is best evaluated on customer trust by itself. You will get a completely different result if you survey investors of employees.
(Cont). You will find very few people who can evaluate a company accurately based on all three touch points; Customer trust, Investor trust and Employee trust. Statistically a sample of 25,000 people out of a population of over 330,000,000 is a very small sample.