Rural areas are losing grocery stores, while gaining dollar stores and regional supercenters, USDA research shows

Economic Research Service graph shows census of food retailers in rural counties.

Rural places lost single-location grocery stores but gained dollar stores and regional "supercenters" from 1998 to 2015, according to the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The trend continues as dollar stores proliferate, especially during the pandemic.

"Most counties without access to a grocery store or a food retailer are rural nonmetro and urban nonmetro," says the report by Alexander Stevens, Clare Cho, Metin Çakır, Xiangwen Kong, and Michael Boland of ERS. "The number of grocery stores has been declining in these counties, particularly after the Great Recession. As a result, the share of grocery store sales in total food sales has been declining during this time, replaced primarily by convenience stores. These trends suggest that access to grocery stores has been declining over the last 25 years."  

Retail chains selling food have gained market share. "The number of single location grocery stores has been declining particularly after 2009, which was also the main source of the large decline in the total number of grocery stores," ERS reports.