What workers at six employee-owned companies retire with

By James and Muhammad Ejaz·22 October 2026

At six well-known employee-owned companies, the average ESOP account runs from $66,626 at Publix Super Markets to $713,599 at King Arthur Baking, by their latest federal filings. Together, their plans paid out $17.4 billion in benefits over their last ten years on file. WinCo says more than 500 of its employee-owners are ESOP millionaires.

Every ESOP files a Form 5500 with the Department of Labor each year, and the filings are public. The figures below come from them. How each plan works comes from the company's own pages and plan documents, and the stories from named newspapers and testimony.

The six companies at a glance

The average divides the plan's assets by everyone with an account. That includes former workers not yet paid, so it is not a typical worker's balance.

Plan assets are net assets at the end of each plan's latest year on file. Paid out is benefits paid that year. Source: Department of Labor Form 5500 datasets, read 22 October 2026.

WinCo Foods: 20% of pay, every year

WinCo, the Boise grocery chain, became an ESOP in 1985, its finance chief told the Idaho Legislature. Its 2026 benefit summary is plain about the money: WinCo currently contributes 20% of an eligible employee's fiscal year compensation in shares (WinCo benefit summary, 2026).

Workers join at 18, after six months and 500 paid hours, and part-time jobs carry the ESOP. They are fully vested after six plan years with at least 1,000 hours worked in each. Workers put in nothing, and a separate 401(k) is offered.

In 2021, The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon, gave the arithmetic. Wages of $35,000 put $7,000 of shares into the account that year.

In 2013, chief executive Steven L. Goddard told Supermarket News that more than 400 of the 11,000 front-line workers in the ESOP had accounts worth more than $1 million. WinCo's 2026 job postings say the plan now has more than 500 millionaire employee-owners.

In the plan year to March 2025, the plan paid out $326.8 million in benefits. WinCo's payout rules are in its summary plan description, which is not public.

Publix: the largest, with a share price you can follow

Publix calls itself the largest employee-owned company in the country (Form 10-K, 2025). It has more than 260,000 employees. Its ESOP, the PROFIT Plan, dates from 1974. Associates join after a year with 1,000 work credit hours, and are fully vested after three years of credited service (Publix).

The board sets the contribution each year, paid in stock. For 2017 it was 8% of eligible wages, and the average contribution was about $2,500 an associate (Publix News). In 2025 the ESOP contribution cost Publix $561 million.

Publix stock does not trade on an exchange, so the board sets its price each quarter with an independent valuation. Adjusted for the 2022 split, it rose from $8.18 a share in March 2017 to $19.65 in March 2026 (Publix 10-K filings). Dividends on ESOP shares are paid to associates in cash.

A vested associate who leaves takes the account in Publix stock. The associate can sell it back to the company under the put option, or roll it into an IRA. Balances over $1,000 must come out before the April after the year you turn 62 (Publix, withdrawals and distributions).

In March 2016, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Virginia Conn, hired as a deli associate in 2003. She retired in 2015 after 13 years and cashed in her shares for a sum she kept private. The paper compared it to a mid-level executive's annual salary. Another Atlanta-area worker, hired right after high school, took early retirement and cashed in for more than $1 million.

King Arthur Baking: the plan that waits six years

The Vermont flour company set up its ESOP in 1996. It has been 100% employee-owned since 2004. It posts its plan documents for workers on a public benefits site.

Workers join after 800 hours in their first year, at any age. The company decides each year whether to contribute, as the same percentage of pay for everyone. Vesting runs from 20% after two years to 100% after six, and is complete at 62. An independent appraiser values the company every June 30 (King Arthur ESOP plan summary).

The payout rule shows the federal timing in practice. Leave at 62 or later, and the account is paid in one cash lump sum the year after you leave. Leave earlier with more than $7,000, and it comes in five equal yearly payments starting in the sixth plan year after you leave (Distribution Policy, July 2024).

That is the longest wait federal law allows, written into a real plan.

King Arthur's finance chief told a Senate committee in July 2025 about a production worker retiring after more than 25 years. She told the finance chief that someone like me doesn't have a retirement account like this.

Burns & McDonnell: employee-owned since 1986

The Kansas City engineering firm has been 100% owned by its ESOP since 1986 (Burns & McDonnell). It has more than 13,000 employees in the United States.

Enrollment is automatic and costs nothing. At year-end the company makes a cash contribution, which buys shares at a fair market value set once a year (benefits page). The company does not publish its vesting or payout rules.

Its plan holds $5.5 billion for 11,599 accounts, and paid out $319.1 million in benefits in 2024.

Bob's Red Mill: a founder's birthday gift

Bob Moore started the ESOP on his 81st birthday, in 2010. The Oregon company became 100% employee-owned in April 2020 (Bob's Red Mill). Its February 2024 release counted more than 700 employee owners. Workers receive company stock each year, alongside monthly profit sharing and a 401(k).

At the end of 2025 the plan held $370.5 million of company stock and owed $103.1 million, so its net assets were $282.4 million. The company does not publish its vesting or payout rules.

Houchens Industries: spreading the risk

Houchens Industries, of Bowling Green, Kentucky, runs grocery stores among other businesses. It has been 100% owned by its ESOP since October 2, 1988. It has more than 19,000 participants and says the plan has paid Greater than $2,195,000,000 in benefits since then (Houchens).

The company names the risk most ESOPs carry: the retirement accounts of the participants are usually almost entirely invested in Sponsor Company stock. Its answer is to own businesses in several industries, from retail to construction and insurance.

In 2007, Smart Business reported on a worker who rose from cashier to store manager. After 40 years with the company, she retired with more than $480,000 in her retirement fund. The article does not say how much of it was ESOP money.

Ten years of growth, and what was paid out

The plans grew over the decade even as they paid out billions in benefits. That money left the plans for their participants, to roll into an IRA or spend.

From each plan's Form 5500 filings for the years shown. Paid out is the benefits paid line, summed over those years.

When an ESOP company is sold

A sale ends the plan and turns the shares into cash. In 2019, New Belgium Brewing was sold to a unit of Kirin. News reports by the Associated Press said employees would receive $100,000 in retirement money, with some receiving significantly greater amounts.

Lifetouch, the school photo company, shows the other side. Its audited statements put the share value at $93 in June 2015, $88 in 2016 and $63 in 2017 (Lifetouch financial statements). Shutterfly then bought it for $825 million in 2018, paying the ESOP trustee, who would pay workers generally in two installments (Shutterfly, April 2018). Workers sued over the earlier fall in value, and a federal court dismissed the case.

An ESOP account is only as good as the company behind it.

What these numbers cannot tell you

• Your own balance. An average mixes a 30-year veteran with someone hired last year. Only your own statement shows yours.
• The years ahead. Each figure is the company's stock value on a past date. A bad decade can shrink it.
• The full company picture. Several of these companies also run a 401(k), which is not counted here.
• Every employee-owned company. Hy-Vee calls itself employee-owned, but its workers own stock through a fund in its 401(k), not an ESOP (Hy-Vee).

Every figure here comes with its source. What no filing can show is what your own account will be worth when you leave. That depends on your pay, your years and the company's next ten years.

If you work at an ESOP company, start with how an ESOP works and when it pays. It covers vesting, the six-year wait, the put option and the taxes on a payout.

Printed from https://savingslast.com/employee-owned-companies/ on . The figures reflect the inputs shown and the rules as published on that date.