Wegman’s and Publix Are America’s Favorite Supermarket, Yearly Study Finds

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Americas Favorite Grocery Store

America’s Favorite Supermarket

In a report issued just last week, Market Force Information, Inc. revealed that, for the first time, America’s favorite supermarket is the Western New York-based Wegman’s. Publix, based in Lakeland, FL was ranked second for the fourth year in a row. Trader Joe’s, which has held the top slot since 2012, ranked third.

Why Wegman’s Is America’s Favorite Supermarket

The list of America’s favorite supermarket chains is developed annually by Market Force, an independent consumer research agency. It tallies factors such as customer satisfaction and whether or not they would recommend a particular store in order to develop what they label a “Composite Loyalty Index,” expressed as a percent. While Wegman’s lacked the consumer votes to rank at all last year, Publix’s numbers remained consistent, and Trader Joe’s lost 5 percentage points, resulting in it dropping to third in ranks. Here are the rest of the stores that round out the top 10 grocers in America:

  1. Wegman’s
  2. Publix
  3. Trader Joe’s
  4. Hy-Vee Food Stores
  5. ALDI
  6. Costco
  7. H-E-B
  8. Kroger
  9. WinCo Foods
  10. ShopRite

America’s favorite supermarket, Wegman’s is a relatively small store chain, based out of Rochester, NY, with 89 stores in 6 states. Its limited market may explain its absence from previous rankings. However, as it slowly and deliberately expands, it is finding its customers flock to new Wegman’s stores with cult-like loyalty. Wegman’s is known for having very large supermarkets that carry an abundance of fresh foods as well as an exhaustive selection of limited diet items. In fact, Wegman’s large variety of gluten-free foods has been easy-to-find since the mid-1990s, before most people even knew what Celiac’s disease was. Perhaps most importantly, however, Wegman’s focuses its employee training on customer experience, aiming to make everyone’s time in their stores a positive one. This only adds to the devotion of its superfans.

Other Important Rankings to Note Before Your Next Shopping Trip

In addition to overall rankings, the Market Force study identified some other key areas of customer experience for a more targets analysis. In these categories Wegman’s was consistently ranked in the top five, but it didn’t win in any of the six major rankings. Instead, Publix was the clear favorite with its customers ranking it number one in five separate categories: item availability, store cleanliness, item selection, checkout speed, and specialty departments. The final major rank, cashier courtesy, went to Trader Joe’s (Publix was #2).

Additional categories, based on prices and deals were also included in the study. Here ALDI, Trader Joe’s estranged brother, took top marks for lowest prices. In addition, Living Rich With Coupons’ (and Cindy’s) fan-favorite, ShopRite was #1 for sales and promotions, Meijer and Kroger were #2 and #3 respectively in this category.

What America Buys

In order to better understand the appeal of these stores, Market Force also asked a series of questions about popular buying trends such as organics and prepared foods. Sales in both categories are up markedly from last year, telling an interesting tale of how the country is changing its eating habits to fit their morals and their life.

The sale of organics is especially noteworthy since, despite a large cross section in terms of income, location, and background, survey takers reported that 92% of their produce purchases in the past 30 days were organic. Added to that, 58% and 57% of meat and dairy purchases were organic. Though not as widespread, organic purchases in other categories such as packaged and dried foods are also on the rise at 32% and 33% respectively. On the other end, the least important organic categories for shoppers are paper products and baby products.

Responsible shopping and eating went farther than that, though. 58% of shoppers expressed that locally-sourced products were important to them as well.

On the flip side, 43% of respondents report that they purchase supermarket prepared food at least once per month with 19% admitting to purchasing it once per week. Citing busy schedules, convenience, and the quality of these prepared foods, shoppers are more and more often opting for these quick meals as a means to replace take out and dining out.