Walmart, Kroger and Costco top list of 75 food sellers in US and Canada

Supermarket News released its annual list of the Top 75 Retailers and Wholesalers. The list ranks the largest sellers of food (by revenue) to be consumed at home in the United States and Canada.

Here are some bulleted highlights that I have copied word-for-word from Supermarket News. I would suggest visiting their website for the complete study.

• Natural and organic foods are still growing, but the retail beneficiaries aren’t necessarily who they used to be;
• Formats serving low-income shoppers – while still some of the industry’s fastest growers due to unit growth – have seen their sales in disarray as their shoppers deal with reductions to federal food benefit programs and rising costs for housing and health care, while a slowly improving economy may be lifting some of their shoppers out of the channel; and
• While Internet retailing remained a relatively small share of the pie, it became the subject of outsized ambitions by some of the industry’s leading players, and a serious threat from digital natives like Amazon, which at year-end announced plans for a leap into the physical food retailing world. Initiatives to add click-and-collect shopping capabilities speak to a trend among food retailers to improve the convenience of their offerings to shoppers, and drive more sales from existing units, sources said.
• All this occurred while a nearly unprecedented stretch of deflating prices triggered chaos throughout the supply chain – an event analysts say could dampen sales at least through the first half of 2017.