How do you shop for groceries: one store or many?

Mar 20, 2004
WEEKLY FARM: One-Stop Food Shopping Losing Out to Trekking From Store to Store
By Ira Dreyfuss
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Buying food for her family sends Andrea Duncan on expeditions. The 42-year-old homemaker from Reston, Va., has given up on the goal that supermarkets were created to achieve - buying all her groceries at one time from one store.

"I'm a six, eight, 10-store shopper," Duncan said. "I have four kids and I have to get it wherever I can."

She shops at neighborhood supermarkets, a warehouse club and specialty stores such as gourmet markets. She also orders from an online grocer for home delivery.

Shoppers such as Duncan can pick food shops according to their day's needs because the variety of food sellers has expanded. People can buy a gallon of milk at a gas station or a box of cookies at a department store.

"Everybody is in the business of selling food," said Karen Brown, a senior vice president at the Food Marketing Institute, a trade group of retailers and wholesalers. Consumers are taking take advantage of it.

"If you are not meeting their needs, there is someone down the street who is happy to take your customer away from you," Brown said.

Brown's group tallied more than a dozen types of retailers other than supermarkets, which typically carry about 15,000 food items. There are superstores stocking 25,000 items, on down to convenience stores with a few shelves of dry food and a wall of cold drinks.

The institute predicts tougher times for neighborhood supermarkets, which accounted for 18.1 percent of total food sales in 2002. Their market share will shrink to 16.6 percent in 2007, according to a recent report from the group.

Stores such as Wal-Mart's supercenters, which include food in a vast array of other merchandise, are forecast to increase their share of the market from 10.1 percent to 15.4 percent, the report said.

To grab dollars from consumers with lots of shopping options, companies try to show they fill specific needs.

The Trader Joe's specialty supermarket chain tries to give customers tastes they will not find elsewhere. It carries only its store label and brands that are hard to find, such as imports just getting to the United States. The name brands in conventional supermarkets do not fit Trader Joe's inventory.

"We are not trying to be all things to all people, and we enjoy that," said Pat St. John, a Trader Joe's marketing executive. "We see no point in doing what everybody else does."

Duncan is a Trader Joe's customer, but her shopping does not end there.

She buys bulk meat and detergent at a warehouse store and cuts up the meat, which she freezes. She buys fruits and vegetables in smaller quantities at supermarkets so she does not have to throw out spoiled produce. If she can plan ahead, she will visit an online grocery with next-day delivery. If she wants items featured in store coupons, she will go to those stores.

The price of her freedom to choose is paid at the pump. Duncan sometimes wonders whether her excursions, which can cover 14 miles, are worth it.

"You're using all your savings on gas," she said.
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On the Net
Food Marketing Institute: http://www.fmi.org/

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