Bloomberg BusinessWeek published a story yesterday about Wegmans’ forthcoming Brooklyn store, claiming that the grocer’s most loyal shoppers are known as “Wegmaniacs.”

To which scores of loyal Wegmans’ shoppers here in the chain's home town replied, “Wait. What?”

“Nobody calls themselves that,” wrote one Democrat and Chronicle Facebook follower. “Never heard of it in my entire life of shopping there,” wrote another. The comments continued: “Never heard that before either” and “Never heard the term until now.”

Also among the puzzled: local Twitter parody account @MedleyCentre. It even went so far as to conduct a poll, asking whether “Wegmaniac” is a term that people hear used often or "complete B.S."

At last check, “complete B.S.” had captured 92 percent of 1,138 votes cast.

So what is the origin of “Wegmaniac?”

We turned to the expert: Jo Natale, Wegmans' vice president of media relations.

“It’s not a term we created,” she said via email, "but I can tell you how it came about. As you may know, at our new store openings, there is often a line of customers waiting for the doors to open. Several years ago, at one of our store openings in a new market (sorry; I don’t recall which state), there was a small group of customers, all wearing T-shirts they had made with ‘Wegmaniac’ across the front. Somehow the term caught on …” Not here, but in other places.

Natale added that because "Wegmaniac" has its roots in store openings, “we have used it a few times in our own social media posts for a store opening.”

Now you know.

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