Grocery store
A grocery store, grocery shop or grocer's shop or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday US usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. In the UK, shops that sell food are distinguished as grocers or grocery shops
Larger types of stores that sell groceries, such as supermarkets and hypermarkets, usually stock significant amounts of non-food products, such as clothing and household items. Small grocery stores that sell mainly fruit and vegetables are known as greengrocers or produce markets, and small grocery stores that predominantly sell prepared food, such as candy and snacks, are known as convenience shops or delicatessens.
A grocer is the name of a bulk seller of food at a grocery store.
Definition
The definition of "grocery store" varies; US and Canadian official definitions of "grocery store" exclude some businesses that sell groceries, such as convenience stores.United States
In the United States:- The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a grocery store as "a store that sells food and household supplies : supermarket". In other words, in common US usage, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the term "grocery store" in American English is often used to mean "supermarket".
- The US and Canadian governments have a wider definition of grocery stores, not limiting them to supermarkets. The category of business "Grocery stores" is defined as "primarily engaged in retailing a general line of food products", and the subcategory, "Supermarkets and Other Grocery Stores" is defined as "establishments generally known as supermarkets and grocery stores, primarily engaged in retailing a general line of food, such as canned and frozen foods; fresh fruits and vegetables; and fresh and prepared meats, fish, and poultry. Included in this industry are delicatessen-type establishments primarily engaged in retailing a general line of food.
United Kingdom
The UK government does not define "grocery " or "supermarket" nor a distinction between them, but defines the types of store formats :
- "One-stop shops" as over 1,400 square metres
- "Mid-range stores": between 280 and 1,400 square metres, and
- "Convenience stores": less than 280 square metres
India
History
Early history
Beginning as early as the 14th century, a grocer was a dealer in comestible dry goods such as spices, peppers, sugar, and cocoa, tea, and coffee. Because these items were often bought in bulk, they were named after the French word for wholesaler, or "grossier". This, in turn, is derived from the Medieval Latin term "grossarius", from which the term "gross" is also derived.From the late 1600s until the 1850s, the word "grocery" referred to a place where people went to drink.
As increasing numbers of staple food-stuffs became available in cans and other less-perishable packaging, the trade expanded its province. Today, grocers deal in a wide range of staple food-stuffs including such perishables as dairy products, meats, and produce. Such goods are, hence, called groceries.
Many rural areas still contain general stores that sell goods ranging from tobacco products to imported napkins. Traditionally, general stores have offered credit to their customers, a system of payment that works on trust rather than modern credit cards. This allowed farm families to buy staples until their harvest could be sold.
Modernization
The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders, an inventor and entrepreneur. Prior to this innovation, grocery stores operated "over the counter," with customers asking a grocer to retrieve items from inventory. Saunders' invention allowed a much smaller number of clerks to service the customers, proving successful "partly because of its novelty, partly because neat packages and large advertising appropriations have made retail grocery selling almost an automatic procedure."The early supermarkets began as chains of grocer's shops. The development of supermarkets and other large grocery stores has meant that smaller grocery stores often must create a niche market by selling unique, premium quality, or ethnic foods that are not easily found in supermarkets. A small grocery store may also compete by locating in a mixed commercial-residential area close to, and convenient for, its customers. Organic foods are also becoming a more popular niche market for smaller stores.
Grocery stores operate in many different styles ranging from rural family-owned operations, such as IGAs, to boutique chains, such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's, to larger supermarket chain stores such as Walmart and Kroger Marketplace. In some places, food cooperatives, or "co-op" markets, owned by their own shoppers, have been popular. However, there has recently been a trend towards larger stores serving larger geographic areas. Very large "all-in-one" hypermarkets such as Walmart, Target, and Meijer have recently forced consolidation of the grocery businesses in some areas, and the entry of variety stores such as Dollar General into rural areas has undercut many traditional grocery stores. The global buying power of such very efficient companies has put an increased financial burden on traditional local grocery stores as well as the national supermarket chains, and many have been caught up in the retail apocalypse of the 2010s.
Many European cities are so dense in population and buildings that large supermarkets, in the American sense, cannot replace the neighbourhood grocer's shop. However, "Metro" shops have been appearing in town and city centres in many countries, leading to the decline of independent smaller shops. Large out-of-town supermarkets and hypermarkets, such as Tesco and Sainsbury's in the United Kingdom, have been steadily weakening trade from smaller shops. Many grocery chains like Spar or Mace are taking over the regular family business model.
Types
Grocery stores can be small or large physical stores or electronic stores.The US FMI food industry association, drawing on research by Willard Bishop, defines the following formats that sell groceries:
Small format
Neighborhood grocery
In developing countries, often a significant portion of grocery shopping is done at so-called "mom-and-pop", small grocery stores. 90% of the 810-billion-dollar Indian food and grocery market sales are at the 12 million small grocery stores, called kirana. Similarly, in Mexico, tiendas de la esquina are still common places for people to buy groceries and sundries, even though they become less and less of the market over time.Convenience store
A convenience shop is a small store that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, snack foods, candy, toiletries, soft drinks, tobacco products, and newspapers. They differ from general stores and village shops in that they are not in a rural location and are used as a convenient supplement to larger shops.Although larger, newer convenience stores may have quite a broad range of items, the selection is still limited compared to supermarkets, and, in many stores, only 1 or 2 choices are available. Convenience stores usually charge significantly higher prices than ordinary grocery stores or supermarkets, which they make up for with convenience by serving more locations and having shorter cashier lines. Many convenience stores offer food ready to eat, such as breakfast sandwiches and other breakfast food.
Delicatessen
A delicatessen store is a type of food store where fine foods are sold. In this sense, the name is often abbreviated to deli. The term delicatessen means "delicacies" or "fine foods". In English, "delicatessen" originally meant only this specially prepared food.Greengrocer
A greengrocer is a retail trader in fruit and vegetables; that is, in groceries that are mostly green in color. Greengrocer is primarily a British and Australian term, and greengrocers' shops were once common in cities, towns and villages.Ethnic market
Some grocers specialize in the foods of certain countries or regions, such as Hispanic/Latin American, Chinese, Italian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Russian, or Polish. These stores are known in the US as ethnic markets, ethnic food markets, ethnic grocers, or ethnic grocery stores.Types include Asian supermarkets outside of Asia, or a bodega or Hispanic supermarkets in the United States or a toko in the Netherlands.
A kosher supermarket or other establishment guided by religious food traditions would also typically have an association with certain ethnic cuisines, though not exclusively.
IBISWorld estimates US ethnic grocery stores will make up ca. $51 billion in sales, 6% of the total ca. $819 billion in 2023 US supermarket sales. The largest such chains in 2016 were Hispanic supermarkets Superior Grocers, with an estimated $ 1.6 billion in sales and El Súper-Bodega Latina, a division of Mexico's Chedraui Group, with estimated sales of $1.2 billion.
Health food store
A health food store is a type of grocery store that primarily sells health foods, organic foods, local produce, and often nutritional supplements. Health food stores typically offer a wider or more specialized selection of foods than conventional grocery stores for their customers, such as people with special dietary needs.Health food stores became much more common in the 1960s in connection to the newly emerging ecology movement and counterculture.