Most popular grocery stores in America

Ken Wolter // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 29% – Fame rating: 49% (Rank: #29) Casey’s has more than 2,000 convenience stores in the Midwest. Founder Donald Lamberti opened his first convenience store in Boone, Iowa, in 1968, naming it after the initials of a friend, Kurvin C. Fish. Lamberti opted to move into small communities, and to this day, more than half the stores are located in places with fewer than 5,000 residents. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, Casey’s expanded delivery services at more than half of its stores. #28. Giant Country Gate Productions // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 30% – Fame rating: 49% (Rank: #29) Giant stores are located in Delaware, Virginia, Washington D.C., and Maryland; the company is headquartered in Landover, Maryland. The first store opened in Washington in 1936. The company’s founders were Nehemiah Myer Cohen, an immigrant from Palestine, and his partners Samuel and Jacob Lehrman. In the 1970s, the company implemented computer-aided checkout and price scanners in its stores. #27. Stop & Shop WoodysPhotos // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 31% – Fame rating: 52% (Rank: #27) Located in New England and the Northeast, Stop & Shop traces its roots to the Rabinovitz family, who opened their Economy Grocery Store in Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1914. The company’s early stores were pioneers in self-service, and its name became Stop & Shop in 1947. Today, its parent company is Ahold Delhaize, based in the Netherlands. #26. A&P B Brown // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 32% – Fame rating: 64% (Rank: #19) Founded in New York City in 1859, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company opened its first store in 1912. Decades later, with almost 16,000 stores, it was the world’s largest retail grocery company. Its popular brands included Jane Parker baked goods and Eight O’Clock Coffee. But industry analysts said the grocery giant was slow to respond to a changing market and changing tastes and began to look outdated as competitors outpaced it. A&P filed for bankruptcy a second and final time in 2015. #25. H-E-B Moab Republic // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 32% – Fame rating: 56% (Rank: #24) Florence Butt opened the first C.C. Butt store in 1905 in Kerrville, Texas, and her son Howard E. Butt opened a second store in 1926. The first store under the name H-E-B opened in San Antonio in 1942. In the 1950s, the company expanded into supermarkets, consolidating butchers, fish markets, bakeries, and pharmacies into its stores, and in 1997, it expanded into northern Mexico, with its first store in Monterrey. #24. Fresh & Easy David McNew // Getty Images – Popularity rating: 33% – Fame rating: 59% (Rank: #21) Fresh & Easy stores were an effort by British retail giant Tesco to break into the U.S. market, launching in 2007 in several Western states. Fresh & Easy went into bankruptcy protection in 2013, when dozens of its stores were sold to Yucaipa Companies. Fresh & Easy went into bankruptcy protection again in 2015, and the stores closed. #23. ShopRite John Arehart // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 33% – Fame rating: 58% (Rank: #23) ShopRite is a retailer-owned cooperative of stores in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland. The cooperative, Wakefern Food Corp., dates back to 1946, when a group of grocers organized to buy products collectively in large quantities to get better prices. Today, Wakefern, consisting of more than 40 grocers that run about 190 supermarkets in the region, is the nation’s largest retailer-owned cooperative. #22. Giant Eagle Eric Glenn // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 33% – Fame rating: 54% (Rank: #25) Five families started Giant Eagle in the 1930s and built a supermarket chain, which also includes OK Grocery food stores located in and around Pittsburgh. It opened Iggle Video rental locations in its stores in the 1980s and later expanded into full-service dining at its newest Market District stores. #21. Shop ‘n Save Thaiview // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 34% – Fame rating: 59% (Rank: #21) More than 90 Shop ‘n Save stores are independently owned and operated in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, and New York. Its Midwestern stores were liquidated by parent company SuperValu in 2018 after it could not find buyers. #20. Food 4 Less Juan Llauro // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 34% – Fame rating: 54% (Rank: #25) Food 4 Less is a subsidiary of The Kroger Co. It has 129 warehouse-style supermarkets in California, Illinois, and Indiana. Customers bag their own groceries, which the company says is a way to keep costs down. #19. IGA ArliftAtoz2205 // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 37% – Fame rating: 65% (Rank: #17) The Independent Grocers Alliance, or IGA, is an international network of supermarkets first organized in 1926 by family-owned groceries that grouped together to become more competitive in their purchasing and marketing but keep their local identities. It has more than 1,100 stores in nearly all U.S. states and about 5,000 in more than 30 other countries. Benefits to IGA members, typically located in small towns, are volume buying and advertising, and the alliance makes some 2,300 private-label IGA brand products. #18. Sprouts Farmers Market Todd A. Merport // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 38% – Fame rating: 64% (Rank: #19) The first Sprouts opened in Chandler, Arizona, in 2002, with a focus on fresh and organic products, and the company grew quickly. It went public in 2013 and started opening stores in the Southeast, mid-Atlantic, and Northwest. It now has more than 340 stores in 22 states. #17. Food Lion Hunter Bliss Images // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 39% – Fame rating: 72% (Rank: #13) Food Lion is located in 10 mid-Atlantic and southeastern states. It began in Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1957, and has grown to more than 1,000 grocery stores. Food Lion was at the center of a landmark legal case in the 1990s, when two ABC News producers submitted false job applications and were hired at its stores in North and South Carolina. They secretly filmed practices in the meat departments, and ABC’s “Primetime Live” broadcast a segment claiming Food Lion’s meat handling was filthy and unsafe. Food Lion sued ABC successfully on grounds that the filming was illegal, but a federal appeals court determined Food Lion had not been harmed and dismissed most of the damages. #16. Wegmans JHVEPhoto // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 39% – Fame rating: 65% (Rank: #17) Privately owned, Wegmans has more than 100 supermarkets in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other New England and mid-Atlantic states. The stores are known for being huge and laid out like outdoor markets. The Wegman family started the company in 1916 in upstate New York with the Rochester Fruit & Vegetable Company. #15. Meijer Jonathan Weiss // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 39% – Fame rating: 68% (Rank: #15) Meijer is family owned and has more than 200 stores in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. In the 1960s, it developed the concept of supercenter stores carrying not only groceries but auto supplies, clothing, home goods, and banking services. #14. Save-A-Lot Andriy Blokhin // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 40% – Fame rating: 72% (Rank: #13) Save-A-Lot is a franchise-style grocery chain with more than 1,300 stores. Its first store opened in Cahokia, Illinois, in 1977, using what is known as a “hard-discount model.” A hard-discount store typically sells a small array of products in a small venue, with low staffing and often in low-income areas. The product choices are limited to the most commonly purchased goods and the store’s own brands. The stores target low- and fixed-income consumers who need ready access to grocery shopping in less affluent neighborhoods. #13. Fresh Market Kondor83 // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 41% – Fame rating: 66% (Rank: #16) Following a trip to Europe, Fresh Market founders Ray and Beverly Berry sought to replicate the feel of an open food market with specialized products and service, a butcher, and flower stands, rather than the warehouse-style supermarkets common in the U.S. They opened their first store in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1982. Today, Fresh Market has some 159 stores in 22 states. The company went private in 2016, with its purchase by Apollo Global Management. #12. Amazon Fresh VDB Photos // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 43% – Fame rating: 83% (Rank: #9) Amazon Fresh is the grocery-delivery service started in 2007 by the online giant. Customers order online, and deliveries are scheduled in two-hour windows. Contact-free delivery of packages left unattended at the customer’s door was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. #11. Publix Felix Mizioznikov // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 44% – Fame rating: 80% (Rank: #11) Publix has more than 1,200 stores, mostly in Florida, Georgia, and other southeastern states. Founder George Jenkins started as a stock clerk and then a manager at Piggly Wiggly before opening his own store in Winter Haven, Florida, in 1930. #10. Albertsons Lisa Aiken // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 46% – Fame rating: 75% (Rank: #12) According to the company, Joe Albertson scraped together his savings and a loan from his wife’s Aunt Bertie to open the first Albertsons store in Boise, Idaho, in 1939. The grocery giant, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2020, operates in 34 states with the store brands of Albertsons, Acme, Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, Carrs, and more. #9. Piggly Wiggly Red Lemon // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 46% – Fame rating: 83% (Rank: #9) Piggly Wiggly started out in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, where it was the nation’s first self-service grocery store, cutting costs by replacing the traditional model of clerks who would fetch goods from shelves for customers. The format was franchised to grocery store operators, largely in the Southeast; today, more than 530 Piggly Wigglys are located in 17 states. The company says the origin of its unusual name is unknown. According to one story, founder Clarence Saunders said he chose the name for the very reason that people would ask about it. #8. Circle K JHVEPhoto // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 48% – Fame rating: 86% (Rank: #7) The convenience store chain has its roots in El Paso, Texas, where Fred Hervey bought three Kay’s Food Stores in 1951 and then expanded into Arizona and New Mexico. There were 1,000 stores across the United States by 1975, with others in Japan under a licensing agreement beginning in 1979. Sales hit $1 billion by 1984. The chain was bought by the Canadian Alimentation Couche-Tard in 2003 and is now in more than 20 countries. #7. Safeway Michael Vi // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 49% – Fame rating: 87% (Rank: #6) The grocery giant started in 1915 in American Falls, Idaho, and by 1928, Safeway was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2014, Albertsons bought Safeway in a $9.4 billion deal. There are now about 900 Safeway locations in 17 states and Washington D.C. #6. Winn-Dixie Ken Wolter // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 50% – Fame rating: 86% (Rank: #7) The original Winn-Dixie founders started with a grocery store in 1913 in Idaho before moving to the southeast, where they opened a store in 1925 in Miami. The company bought up dozens of stores in the region and became Winn-Dixie in 1955. It ran into financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005. Today, about 500 Winn-Dixie stores can be found throughout the Southeast–in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida. #5. Whole Foods Market Alastair Wallace // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 56% – Fame rating: 96% (Rank: #2) The first Whole Foods Market opened in Austin, Texas, in 1980. Now, 40 years later, it has more than 500 stores specializing in natural and organic products. In 2017, Amazon bought Whole Foods in a $13.7 billion cash deal. Under Amazon’s ownership, some prices dropped, but research in 2019 found Whole Foods had the highest grocery chain prices in eight U.S. metropolitan areas. #4. Kroger Kevin Chen Images // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 60% – Fame rating: 94% (Rank: #4) With annual sales of more than $121 billion and almost 2,800 stores, Kroger is a retail grocery giant. The first Kroger store, which opened in 1883 in Cincinnati, pioneered baking its own bread and making some of its own products. In the 1970s, the grocery retailer pioneered using electronic scanners. #3. Aldi Eric Glenn // Shutterstock – Popularity rating: 62% – Fame rating: 90% (Rank: #5) More than 1,900 Aldi stores are located in 36 U.S. states. Nearly all–more than 90%–of the products they sell are Aldi brands, a system that is designed to lower prices with its lower procurement costs. Aldi charges a 25-cent deposit for use of its grocery carts so customers will return them to the cart corral. #2. Trader Joe’s