Study: Rural areas more likely to have independent grocery stores, which were hit harder by the Great Recession

Number of independent grocery stores per capita in 2015 (USDA charts; click on either image to enlarge it.)

A new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service says rural areas are more likely to have independent grocery stores than urban areas, and that those rural independent grocers were harder hit by the Great Recession than their urban counterparts. "At the onset of the recession, the number of independent grocery stores stagnated, causing the share of these grocery stores to decline through 2015, the report's abstract says.

"Independent Grocery Stores in the Changing Landscape of the U.S. Food Retail Industry" studied the performance of independent grocers from 2005 to 2015. Independent grocers are defined as those that own and operate four or fewer retail food establishments, so they tend to be smaller in size and sales volume than corporate-owned or chain supermarkets, Bryce Oates reports for The Daily Yonder.

Some findings from the study:

• Rural independent grocers are most prominent in Western, New England, and Great Plains states.
• Independent grocers altogether employ the equivalent of 330,000 full-time workers.
• In rural counties that are not adjacent to a metropolitan county, independent grocers tend outnumber chain stores, but are small; independent-grocer sales only account for 18 percent of all food retail sales in these counties.
• In rural counties adjacent to metropolitan counties, independent grocers account for 16 percent of retail food sales, and only 10 percent in metropolitan counties.
• The counties with the most independent grocers per person tend to be poorer and have more African-American, Hispanic and Latino populations.
• Grocers with a higher percentage of sales from USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamp) redemptions are more likely to be independent, especially in rural areas.
• The Great Recession hurt rural independent grocers more than metropolitan ones, especially in the rural West. Rural independent grocers in Great Plains states were hurt the least.