Channel Performance

Grocery has transformed significantly over the last 30 years, and ID sales are one of the most interesting and insightful measures for gauging which retailers and which channels are winning or losing. Channel performance differences were smaller before Covid, but during and after Covid, these gaps have grown and tell us what consumers value today.

Grocery Channels

Looking at the last four quarters, the dotted black line is US Grocery Sales YOY and is our baseline measure. In theory, those channels above the line are gaining share and those below losing share.

This suggests that Premium, Walmart, and Member Warehouse are gaining while Supermarket and Dollar/Discount are losing.

Premium continues to significantly outpace the other channels and is increasing their advantage. Premium has done particularly well in the last year because HH's with money have continued to spend. The top 10% of HH's make up almost 50% of consumer expenditure and this group is much more likely to shop at premium retailers.

Walmart has become their own channel. They started to flex their might during the 2016 deflationary period and have continued to improve every year. They currently sell about $275B in groceries annually have seen ID sales north of 4% for the last year.

Warehouse has also been very strong for the last couple of years, generating over 5% id sales growth in the last year

Dollar/Discount = Dollar General and Grocery Outlet

Member Warehouse = Costco, BJ's Warehouse and Sam's Club

Premium = Sprout's and Natural Grocer

Supermarket = Publix, Kroger, Ahold Delhaize, Albertsons