1. Nontraditional formats
In the past 10 to 15 years, U.S. consumers have shifted their food purchases away from conventional supermarkets and toward nontraditional formats, the report states. The supermarket share of total grocery expenditures is falling, while supercenter usage for grocery items is growing. Supercenters such as Wal-Mart captured most of the share lost by supermarkets, the report says.
From 2008 through 2012, share of club-store sales grew from 7% to 9%, and dollar-store share increased nearly one percentage point. The report attributes the growth in dollar-store share to the efforts made by many chains of this format to increase their food offerings during the recession and subsequent economic recovery. The rest of the formats measured—including convenience stores—showed almost no change for share of grocery expenditures from 2008 to 2012.