supermarket

File:Astor Market meat counter in Manhattan in 1915.jpg in New York, one predecessor of the modern supermarket, operated from 1915 to 1917.]]

File:Piggly Wiggly store, 1918.png store in Memphis, Tennessee, the first supermarket, 1918]]

File:SB-butik 1941.jpg, 1941]]

File:EmpressWalkLoblaws-Vivid.jpg shopping for produce and fruit, 2012]]

File:Klaukkala S-Market 05.jpg store with 24/7 service in Klaukkala, Finland, 2022]]

Historically, the earliest retailers were peddlers who marketed their wares in the streets, but by the 1920s, retail food sales in the United States had mostly shifted to small corner grocery stores.{{cite book |last1=Murphy |first1=Wendy Wiedenhoft |title=Consumer Culture and Society |date=2017 |publisher=SAGE Publications |location=Thousand Oaks, California |isbn=9781483358147 |page=95 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aTHFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA95 |access-date=January 8, 2023}} In that era, the standard retail grocery business model was for a clerk to fetch products from shelves behind the merchant's counter while customers waited in front of the counter, indicating the items they wanted. Customers needed to ask because "most stores were designed to keep customers (and their children) away from the food".{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA77 }} Most foods and merchandise did not come in individually wrapped consumer-sized packages, so the clerk had to measure out and wrap the precise amount desired. Merchants did not post prices, which forced customers to haggle and bargain with clerks to reach fair prices for their purchases.{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=Shane |title=Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race |date=2018 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300232691 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lepqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA12}}{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=25 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA25}} Haggling was further complicated by other factors such as the clerk's awareness of the customer's social status and ability to pay. This business model had already been established in Europe for millennia, with examples of primitive retail stores found as far back as ancient Rome.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7yJTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 | location=Rome| publisher=Edizioni Nuova Cultura |title=Public Space and an Interdisciplinary Approach to Design | date=28 February 2018| isbn=9788868129958 | last1=Vadini | first1=Ettore |page=77}} It offered extensive opportunities for social interaction: many regarded this style of shopping as "a social occasion" and would often "pause for conversations with the staff or other customers".

These practices were by nature slow, had high labor intensity, and were quite expensive. The number of customers who could be attended to at one time was limited by the number of staff employed in the store. Early grocery stores were "austere" and tiny by modern standards, with as few as 450 items.{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=78 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA78 }} Shopping for groceries often involved trips to multiple specialty shops,{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=79 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA79 }} such as a greengrocer, butcher,{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=24 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA24}} bakery, fishmonger and dry goods store, in addition to a general store.{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=25 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA25}}{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=Shane |title=Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race |date=2018 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300232691 |page=13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lepqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA13}} Milk and other items of short shelf life were delivered by a milkman. These small retailers were the final links in a "long and tortuous food chain," as most of them were far too small to deal directly with most of the persons who actually harvested, processed, and distributed all that food.{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA81 }} During the 1920s, the highly inefficient nature of the American food distribution system meant that the "average urban family spent fully one-third of its budget on food".

One of the most important defining features of the modern supermarket is cheap food.{{cite book |last1=Deener |first1=Andrew |title=The Problem with Feeding Cities: The Social Transformation of Infrastructure, Abundance, and Inequality in America |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=9780226703077 |page=74 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98byDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74 |access-date=January 8, 2023}} The vast abundance of cheap, wholesome food which modern consumers take for granted today was simply unimaginable before the middle of the 20th century, to the point that the first American supermarket customers in the 1930s were overcome with emotion at the sight of so much cheap food.{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=32 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA32}}

Before the 20th century, food was neither cheap, nor wholesome, nor abundant. For example, in 1812, almost 90 percent of Americans worked in food production, and they struggled to stay alive on food which was often scarce, of poor quality, and riddled with diseases which could and did often kill them.{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=6 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA6}}

The concept of an inexpensive food market relying on economies of scale was developed by Vincent Astor, but he was ahead of his time. He founded the Astor Market in 1915, investing $750,000 of his fortune into a 165′ by 125′ (50×38-metre) corner of 95th and Broadway, Manhattan, creating, in effect, an open-air mini-mall that sold meat, fruit, produce and flowers.{{Cite web |date=1915 |title=[Opening of the Astor market, New York City, 1915] |url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c06967 |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=www.loc.gov |language=en}} The expectation was that customers would come from great distances ("miles around"), but in the end, even attracting people from ten blocks away was difficult, and the market folded in 1917.{{cite magazine| magazine=The Western Fruit Jobber|volume=IV|title=The Retailer| issue=3|date=July 1917|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yRMkAQAAIAAJ&q=%22astor%20market%22&pg=RA2-PA52}}{{cite news|work=The New York Times|title=The Astor Legacy in Brick and Stone|last=Gray |first=Christopher|date=10 September 2006}}{{Cite news |last=Gray |first=Christopher |date=1987-07-05 |title=STREETSCAPES: THALIA THEATER; A Closed Revival House That May Itself Be Revived |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/05/realestate/streetscapes-thalia-theater-a-closed-revival-house-that-may-itself-be-revived.html |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which was established in 1859, was an early grocery store chain in Canada and the United States. It became common in North American cities in the 1920s. Early chains like A&P did not sell fresh meats or produce. During the 1920s, to reduce the hassle of visiting multiple stores, U.S. grocery store chains like A&P introduced the combination store.{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=127 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA127 }}{{cite book |last1=Deener |first1=Andrew |title=The Problem with Feeding Cities: The Social Transformation of Infrastructure, Abundance, and Inequality in America |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=9780226703077 |page=72 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98byDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72 |access-date=January 8, 2023}} This was a grocery store which combined several departments under one roof, but generally maintained the traditional system of clerks pulling products from shelves on request. By 1929, only one in three U.S. grocery stores was a combination store.

The concept of a self-service grocery store predates the supermarket; it was developed by entrepreneur Clarence Saunders at his Piggly Wiggly stores, the first of which opened in 1916.{{cite book |last1=Deener |first1=Andrew |title=The Problem with Feeding Cities: The Social Transformation of Infrastructure, Abundance, and Inequality in America |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=9780226703077 |page=73 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98byDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA73 |access-date=January 8, 2023}} Saunders was awarded several patents for the ideas he incorporated into his stores.{{Cite patent|number=US1242872A|title=Self-serving store|gdate=1917-10-09|invent1=Saunders|inventor1-first=Clarence|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US1242872A/en}}{{cite web| url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US1407680A/en|title=Lighting system for self-serving stores}}{{Cite patent|number=US1704061A|title=Self-serving store|gdate=1929-03-05|invent1=Clarence|inventor1-first=Saunders|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US1704061A/en}}{{Cite patent|number=US1647889A|title=Arrangement and construction of store fixtures|gdate=1927-11-01|invent1=Clarence|inventor1-first=Saunders|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US1647889A/en}} The stores were a financial success and Saunders began to offer franchises.

The general trend since then has been to stock shelves at night so that customers, the following day, can obtain their own goods and bring them to the front of the store to pay for them. Although there is a higher risk of shoplifting, the costs of appropriate security measures ideally will be outweighed by reduced labor costs.{{cite web|url=https://knappily.com/article/5b90bd0f08798e4f0dc84253|title=September 6, 1916: The first supermarket opens for business|work=Knappily - The Knowledge App |date=6 September 2018|publisher=Knappily|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025155834/https://knappily.com/article/5b90bd0f08798e4f0dc84253|archive-date=25 October 2020|access-date=27 April 2022 |author1=Knappily }}{{unreliable source?|date=April 2022}}

Historically, there has been much debate about the origin of the supermarket. For example, Southern California grocery store chains Alpha Beta and Ralphs both have strong claims to being the first supermarket.{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=128 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA128 |access-date=January 8, 2023}} By 1930, both chains were already operating multiple {{convert|12000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} self-service grocery stores. However, as of 1930, both chains were not yet true supermarkets in the modern sense because their prices remained quite high; as noted above, one of the most important defining features of the supermarket is cheap food. Their main selling point was free parking. Other strong contenders in Texas included Weingarten's and Henke & Pillot.{{cite news | url=https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Old-timey-Houston-grocery-stores-Did-you-shop-12716238.php | title=Old timey Houston grocery stores – Did you shop at any of these? | first=Dana | last=Burke | work=Houston Chronicle | date=1 May 2020}}

To end the debate, the Food Marketing Institute in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and with funding from H.J. Heinz, researched the issue. They defined the attributes of a supermarket as "self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling".Ryan Mathews, "1926–1936: Entrepreneurs and Enterprise: A Look at Industry Pioneers like King Kullen and J. Frank Grimes, and the Institution They Created (Special Report: Social Change & the Supermarket)", Progressive Grocer 75, no. 12 (December 1996): 39–43. They determined that the first true supermarket in the United States was opened by a former Kroger employee, Michael J. Cullen, on 4 August 1930, inside a {{convert|6000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} former garage in Jamaica, Queens in New York City.{{cite web |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The long takeoff of skyrocketing food prices |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-grocery-prices-are-skyrocketing-because-we-ignored-their-long-takeoff/ |website=The Globe and Mail |access-date=7 November 2023 |date=13 January 2023 |quote=His first store, the King Kullen ... opened in August, 1930, in the Queens borough of New York, to immediate and astounding success.}} The store King Kullen, operated under the logic of "pile it high and sell it cheap". The store layout was designed by Joseph Unger, who originated the concept of customers using baskets to collect groceries before checking out at a counter.{{Cite news |last=Lynwander |first=Linda |date=1993-07-11 |title=Recollections of First Supermarket |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/11/nyregion/recollections-of-first-supermarket.html |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} Everything displayed for sale in the store "had prices clearly marked", meaning that consumers would no longer need to haggle over prices. Cullen described his store as "the world's greatest price wrecker".{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=129 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA129 |access-date=January 8, 2023}} At the time of his death in 1936, there were seventeen King Kullen stores in operation. Although Saunders had brought the world self-service, uniform stores, and nationwide marketing, Cullen built on this idea by adding separate food departments, selling large volumes of food at discount prices and adding a parking lot. Moreover, the supermarket format as pioneered by King Kullen was not only cheap, but convenient, in how it combined so many different departments under one roof which had formerly required trips to separate stores.

Early supermarkets like King Kullen were called "cheapy markets" by industry experts at the time because they were literally so cheap, thanks to their rock-bottom prices; this was soon replaced by the less derogatory and more positive phrase "super market". The compound phrase was then closed up to become the modern term "supermarket".

File:Safeway50s.jpg advertisement from the 1950s]]

Other established American grocery chains in the 1930s, such as Kroger and Safeway Inc. at first resisted Cullen's ideas, but were eventually forced to build their own supermarkets as the economy sank into the Great Depression. American consumers became extraordinarily price-sensitive at a level never experienced before. Kroger took the new retail format one step further and pioneered the first supermarket surrounded on all four sides by a parking lot.

For A&P, the largest grocery store chain of that era, the conversion from traditional grocery stores to supermarkets came as a terrible shock for the thousands of retail employees whose lives and careers were changed forever.{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=208 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA208 }} The armies of retail clerks who were the public face of the traditionally slow and social retail experience were replaced with the tedious, specialized jobs necessary to operate a modern supermarket. Stock clerks, usually male, moved boxes and kept the shelves full of goods, while checkout clerks (cashiers), usually female, were faced with never-ending lines of impatient shoppers eager to check out and go. But A&P had no choice but to plunge ahead into this strange new world. One of King Kullen's earliest imitators, Big Bear, opened its first supermarket in 1933 in New Jersey and collected more revenue in one year than over a hundred A&P stores. By 1937, 44 percent of A&P stores were losing money.{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=207 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA207 }} By 1938, A&P had already opened over 1,100 supermarkets.{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=Shane |title=Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race |date=2018 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300232691 |page=14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lepqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA14}} By February 1940, A&P had closed 5,950 grocery stores and cut its percentage of money-losing stores to 18 percent. There was no way to escape the cold, hard numbers driving this brutal process: in A&P's traditional grocery stores, "wages and overhead expenses" had consumed 18 percent of sales, while in A&P's newly opened supermarkets in those same neighborhoods, those same numbers were less than 12 percent of sales.

Once the large chains joined the supermarket trend, the new retail format exploded across the country like a wildfire. The number of American supermarkets almost tripled from 1,200 in 32 states in 1936 to over 3,000 in 47 states in 1937. It was well over 15,000 by 1950.{{cite book |last1=Coleman |first1=Peter |title=Shopping Environments: Evolution, Planning and Design |date=2006 |publisher=Elsevier |location=Amsterdam |isbn=9780750660013 |page=40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_oyMjtrOIvgC&pg=PA40}} One sign of the supermarket format's success in slashing labor costs, overhead, and food prices was that the percentage of disposable income spent by American consumers on food plunged "from 21 percent in 1930 to 16 percent in 1940". The modern era of "cheap food" had begun.

As large chain stores began to dominate the American grocery landscape with their low overhead and low prices (while crushing numerous independent small stores along the way), a backlash to this radical alteration of food distribution infrastructure appeared in the form of numerous anti-chain campaigns. The idea of "monopsony", proposed by Cambridge economist Joan Robinson in 1933, that a single buyer could outmaneuver a market of multiple sellers, became a strong anti-chain rhetorical device. With public backlash came political pressure to even the playing field for smaller vendors lacking the luxury of economies of scale. In 1936, the Robinson-Patman Act was implemented as a way of preventing such large chains from using their buying power to reap advantages over small stores, although the act was not well enforced and did not have much impact on such chains.Hamilton, Shane. "Supermarkets, Free Markets, and the Problem of Buying Power in the Postwar United States", in What's Good For Business: Business and Politics Since World War II, eds. Julian Zelizer and Kim Phillips-Fein (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Supermarkets rapidly proliferated across both Canada and the United States with the growth of automobile ownership and suburban development after World War II. Most North American supermarkets are located in suburban strip shopping centers as an anchor store along with other smaller retailers. They are generally regional rather than national in their company branding. Kroger is the most nationally oriented supermarket chain in the United States, but it has preserved most of its regional brands, including Ralphs, City Market, King Soopers, Fry's, Smith's, and QFC.{{citation needed|date=July 2010}}

By the 1950s, supermarkets had become part of the everyday lives of American consumers, but were still extremely rare outside of the United States. Most persons outside the United States had never seen a supermarket or even heard of the term. That began to change after 1956, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture presented an "American Way exhibit" at the International Food Congress in Rome, Italy.{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=34 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA34}} The exhibit included "the first fully stocked supermarket outside of the United States". The exhibit was a rather "modest staging" with only about 2,500 items, not a truly comprehensive duplicate of a typical full-size U.S. supermarket, and yet it was much larger than anything the world had ever seen. Just like the American consumers who had entered the first supermarkets two decades earlier, conference attendees, local Italian visitors, and the international news media were all astonished, bewildered, and stunned by the "mountains of food".

In 1957, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Association of Food Chains orchestrated an even grander presentation, Supermarket USA, at the Zagreb International Trade Fair in what was then part of Yugoslavia.{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=Shane |title=Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race |date=2018 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=9780300232691 |pages=97–107 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lepqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97}} Supermarket USA featured 4,000 consumer items in a 10,000 square-foot (929 m²) exhibit, "the first fully operational American-style supermarket in a communist country". The American Way supermercato the year before and Supermarket USA were among the first of several instances in which American supermarkets were deployed internationally at the height of the Cold War as shock and awe instruments of American propaganda to demonstrate the supposed superiority of Western Bloc capitalism over Eastern Bloc communism.

Before then, a few countries had already begun to implement supermarkets due to their proximity to or affinity for the United States. Canada, to the north, had implemented the new retail format at the same time during the 1930s. For example, Québec's first supermarket opened in 1934 in Montréal, under the banner Steinberg's.{{Cite web |title=Steinberg Inc |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/steinberg-inc |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca |language=en}} In Canada, the largest supermarket chain is Loblaw, which operates stores under a variety of banners targeted to different segments and regions, including Fortinos, Zehrs, No Frills, the Real Canadian Superstore, and Loblaws, the foundation of the company. Sobeys is Canada's second largest supermarket with locations across the country, operating under many banners (Sobeys IGA in Quebec).{{citation needed|date=July 2010}}

In the United Kingdom, self-service shopping took longer to become established, despite its Special Relationship with the United States. In 1947, there were just ten self-service shops in the country.{{cite web|url=http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-70.html|title=Regulating UK supermarkets: an oral-history perspective|last=Hamlett|first=Jane|date=April 2008|publisher=History & Policy|access-date=9 December 2010|location=United Kingdom|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807102317/http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-70.html|archive-date=7 August 2011|url-status=dead}} In 1951, ex-US Navy sailor Patrick Galvani, son-in-law of Express Dairies chairman, made a pitch to the board to open a chain of supermarkets across the country. The UK's first supermarket under the new Premier Supermarkets brand opened in Streatham, South London,{{cite web|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5245/is_7528_224/ai_n28873842/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708193934/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5245/is_7528_224/ai_n28873842/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 July 2012 |title=It's a super anniversary: it's 50 years since the first full size self-service supermarket was unveiled in the UK |first=Helen |last=Gregory |work=The Grocer |date=3 November 2001 |access-date=30 June 2010 }} taking in ten times as much revenue per week as the average British general store of the time. Other chains caught on. After Galvani lost out to Tesco's Jack Cohen in 1960 to buy 212 stores of the Irwin's chain, the sector underwent significant consolidation, resulting in "the big four" dominant UK supermarket chains: Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.

In the 1950s, supermarkets frequently issued trading stamps as incentives to customers. Today, most chains issue store-specific "membership cards", "club cards", or "loyalty cards". These typically enable the cardholder to receive special members-only discounts on certain items when the credit card-like device is scanned at the checkout.{{Cite journal|last=Mauri|first=Chiara|year=2003|title=Card loyalty. A new emerging issue in grocery retailing.|journal=Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services|volume=10|issue=1|pages=13–25|doi=10.1016/S0969-6989(02)00036-X}} Sales of selected data generated by club cards is becoming a significant revenue stream for some supermarkets.

A report published by the international organization ActionAid in 2007, Who pays? estimated that 32 million people shopped in British supermarkets every week.ActionAid (2007), "Who Pays? How British Supermarkets are Keeping Women Workers in Poverty", page 1

{{asof|2018}}, there were approximately 38,000 supermarkets in the supermarket's birthplace, the United States; Americans spent $701 billion at supermarkets that year;{{cite book |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket |date=2020 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780553459418 |page=5 |edition=2021 paperback |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6FHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA5}} and the American supermarket stood at the pinnacle of a food production and distribution system so efficient that less than three percent of the U.S. population produced more than enough food to feed everyone. The average American adult "will spend 2 percent of their life inside" supermarkets.

In the 21st century, traditional supermarkets in many countries face intense competition from discounters such as Wal-Mart, Aldi and Lidl, which typically is non-union and operates with better buying power. Other competition exists from warehouse clubs such as Costco that offer savings to customers buying in bulk quantities. Superstores, such as those operated by Wal-Mart and Asda, often offer a wide range of goods and services in addition to foods. In Australia, Aldi, Woolworths and Coles are the major players running the industry with fierce competition among all the three. The rising market share of Aldi has forced the other two to cut prices and increase their private label product ranges.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/retail-trade/food-retailing/supermarkets-grocery-stores.html|title=Supermarkets and Grocery Stores – Australia Market Research Report |website=IBISWorld |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200310111846/https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/retail-trade/food-retailing/supermarkets-grocery-stores.html |archive-date= Mar 10, 2020 }} The proliferation of such warehouse and superstores has contributed to the continuing disappearance of smaller, local grocery stores, the increased dependence on the automobile, and suburban sprawl because of the necessity for large floor space and increased vehicular traffic. For example, in 2009 51% of Wal-Mart's $251 billion domestic sales were recorded from grocery goods.Csipak, James J., Rohit Rampal, and Laurent Josien. "The Effect of a Wal-Mart Supercenter on Supermarket Food Prices: The Case of the City of Plattsburgh in Upstate New York". Academy of Marketing Studies Journal 2 (2014): 251. Academic OneFile. Web. 5 November 2015. Some critics consider the chains' common practice of selling loss leaders to be anti-competitive. They are also wary of the negotiating power that large, often multinationals have with suppliers around the world.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/jun/25/tesco-supermarkets-behaving-badly-suppliers|title=Supermarkets behaving badly – how suppliers can get a fairer deal|first=Josephine|last=Moulds|date=25 June 2015|website=The Guardian |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150731060257/http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/jun/25/tesco-supermarkets-behaving-badly-suppliers |archive-date= Jul 31, 2015 }}

{{Main|Online grocer}}

{{Further|Online food ordering}}

During the dot-com boom, Webvan, an online-only supermarket, was formed and went bankrupt after three years and was acquired by Amazon. The British online supermarket Ocado, which uses a high degree of automation in its warehouses,{{Cite web |title=BBC One - Supermarket Secrets, Series 3, On Demand |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000497r |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}} was the first successful online-only supermarket. Ocado expanded into providing services to other supermarket firms such as Waitrose and Morrisons. Grocery stores such as Walmart employ food delivery services offered by third parties such as DoorDash.{{Cite web |date=April 24, 2018 |title=DoorDash and Walmart Join Forces to Accelerate Retailer's Online Grocery Delivery Offering |url=https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2018/04/24/doordash-and-walmart-join-forces-to-accelerate-retailers-online-grocery-delivery-offering |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821024636/https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2018/04/24/doordash-and-walmart-join-forces-to-accelerate-retailers-online-grocery-delivery-offering |archive-date=Aug 21, 2023 |website=Walmart Corporate}} Other online food delivery services, such as Deliveroo in the United Kingdom, have begun to pay specific attention to supermarket delivery.{{Cite web |date=7 April 2020 |title=Morrisons and Deliveroo join up to offer grocery home delivery |url=https://www.morrisons-corporate.com/media-centre/corporate-news/morrisons-and-deliveroo-join-up-to-offer-grocery-home-delivery/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601025208/https://www.morrisons-corporate.com/media-centre/corporate-news/morrisons-and-deliveroo-join-up-to-offer-grocery-home-delivery/ |archive-date=Jun 1, 2023 |website=Morrisons Corporate}}

Delivery robots are offered by various companies partnering with supermarkets.

Micro-fulfillment centers (MFC) are relatively small warehouses with sophisticated automated rack-and-tote systems which prepare orders for pickup and delivery.{{Cite news|last=Abel|first=Carol|date=9 August 2019|title=The Small, But Mighty, Micro-fulfillment Center|work=Food Marketing Institute|url=https://www.fmi.org/blog/view/fmi-blog/2019/08/09/the-small-but-mighty-micro-fulfillment-center|access-date=11 May 2020}} Once the order is complete, the customer will pick it up (i.e. "click-and-collect") or have it fulfilled via home delivery.{{Cite news|last=Dudlicek|first=Jim|date=17 March 2020|title=Digital-First Grocery: A Look Inside Micro Fulfillment at Albertsons|work=Progressive Grocer|url=https://progressivegrocer.com/digital-first-grocery-look-inside-micro-fulfillment-albertsons|url-status=dead|access-date=11 May 2020|archive-date=14 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200414063701/https://progressivegrocer.com/digital-first-grocery-look-inside-micro-fulfillment-albertsons}} Supermarkets are investing in micro-fulfillment centers with the hope that automation can help reduce the costs of online commerce and e-commerce by shortening the distances from store to home and speeding up deliveries. MFCs are said by many to be the key to profitably fulfilling online orders.{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Jennifer |date=2020-01-27 |title=Grocery Delivery Goes Small With Micro-Fulfillment Centers |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/grocery-delivery-goes-small-with-micro-fulfillment-centers-11580121002 |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=Wall Street Journal |language=en-US |issn=0099-9660}}

{{See also|Grocery store#Types}}

The U.S. FMI food industry association, drawing on research by Willard Bishop, defines the following formats (store types) that sell groceries:[https://www.fmi.org/our-research/supermarket-facts Willard Bishop. The Future of Food Retailing, 2014, as referenced in "Supermarket facts", FMI site, accessed July 13, 2020]

Some supermarkets are focusing on selling more (or even exclusively) organically certified produce.{{Cite web |last=Rabbi |first=Fazle |title=The Organic Retail Revolution |url=https://proguidez.com/the-organic-retail-revolution/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240620100848/https://proguidez.com/the-organic-retail-revolution/ |archive-date=2024-06-20 |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=proguidez.com |language=en-US}}[https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Organic-food-sector-booming-in-France Organic food sector booming in France] Others are trying to differentiate themselves by selling fewer (or no) products containing palm oil.{{Cite news |date=2018-04-10 |title=Iceland to be first UK supermarket to cut palm oil from own-brand products |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/10/iceland-to-be-first-uk-supermarket-to-cut-palm-oil-from-own-brand-products |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}} This as the demand of palm oil is a main driver for the destruction of rainforests. As a response to the growing concern on the heavy use of petroleum-based plastics for food packaging, so-called "zero waste" and "plastic-free" supermarkets and groceries are on the rise.{{Cite news |date=2019-04-22 |title=Grocery stores are packed with plastic. Some are changing. |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/plastic-free-supermarket-grocery-shopping/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423171703/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/plastic-free-supermarket-grocery-shopping/ |archive-date=2019-04-23 |access-date=2025-05-29}}{{Cite news |last=Bodkin |first=Henry |date=2018-11-07 |title=Britain's first plastic-free supermarket zones open |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/07/britains-first-plastic-free-supermarket-zones-open/ |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=The Telegraph |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}{{Cite web |last=Matchar |first=Emily |title=The Rise of 'Zero-Waste' Grocery Stores |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/rise-zero-waste-grocery-stores-180971495/ |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}

File:La Anonima San Martin de los Andes 3.jpg supermarket in Argentina]]

Beginning in the 1990s, the food sector in developing countries has rapidly transformed, particularly in Latin America, South-East Asia, India, China and South Africa. With growth, has come considerable competition and some amount of consolidation.{{cite journal|last1=Reardon|first1=Thomas|last2=Timmer|first2=Peter|last3=Berdegue|first3=Julio|year=2004|title=The Rapid Rise of Supermarkets in Developing Countries: Induced Organizational, Institutional, and Technological Change in Agrifood Systems|url=https://www.fao.org/3/ae226e/ae226e00.pdf|journal=Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics|volume=1|issue=2|publisher=Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427145423/https://www.fao.org/3/ae226e/ae226e00.pdf|archive-date=27 April 2022}}{{page needed|date=April 2020}} The growth has been driven by increasing affluence and the rise of a middle class; the entry of women into the workforce; with a consequent incentive to seek out easy-to-prepare foods; the growth in the use of refrigerators, making it possible to shop weekly instead of daily; and the growth in car ownership, facilitating journeys to distant stores and purchases of large quantities of goods. The opportunities presented by this potential have encouraged several European companies to invest in these markets (mainly in Asia) and American companies to invest in Latin America and China. Local companies also entered the market.Reardon et al, op cit Initial development of supermarkets has now been followed by hypermarket growth. In addition there were investments by companies such as Makro and Metro Cash and Carry in large-scale Cash-and-Carry operations.

While the growth in sales of processed foods in these countries has been much more rapid than the growth in fresh food sales, the imperative nature of supermarkets to achieve economies of scale in purchasing means that the expansion of supermarkets in these countries has important repercussions for small farmers, particularly those growing perishable crops. New supply chains have developed involving cluster formation; development of specialized wholesalers; leading farmers organizing supply, and farmer associations or cooperatives.Kevin Chen, Andrew W. Shepherd & Carlos A. da Silva, [http://www.fao.org/3/a-a0006e.pdf "Changes in food retailing in Asia"]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180310011650/http://www.fao.org/3/a-a0006e.pdf|date=10 March 2018}} In some cases supermarkets have organized their own procurement from small farmers; in others wholesale markets have adapted to meet supermarket needs.Andrew W. Shepherd and Eva Gálvez. "The response of traditional marketing channels to the growth of supermarkets and to the demand for safer and higher quality fruit and vegetables, with particular reference to Asia". Proceedings of the International Symposium on Fresh Produce Supply Chain Management, Chiang Mai 2006. pp. 304–313. FAO, Bangkok.[http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah996e/ah996e00.HTM]

Larger supermarkets in North America and in Europe typically sell many items among many brands, sizes and varieties. U.S. publisher Supermarket News lists the following categories, for example:{{Cite web |title=Grocery Categories |url=https://www.supermarketnews.com/grocery-categories |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=Supermarket News |language=en}} Hypermarkets have a larger range of non-food categories such as clothing, electronics, household decoration and appliances.

• Bakery (packaged and sometimes a service bakery and/or onsite bakery)
• Beverages (non-alcoholic packaged, sometimes also alcoholic if laws permit)
• Nonfood & Pharmacy (e.g. cigarettes, lottery tickets and over-the-counter medications (as laws permit), DVD rentals, books and magazines, including supermarket tabloids, greeting cards, toys, small selection of home goods like light bulbs, housewares (typically limited)
• Personal care e.g. cosmetics, soap, shampoo
• Produce (fresh fruits and vegetables)
• Floral (flowers and plants)
• Deli (sliced meats, cheeses, etc.)
• Prepared Foods (packaged and frozen foods)
• Meat (fresh packaged, frozen, sometimes with a butcher service counter)
• Seafood (fresh packaged, frozen, sometimes with a butcher service counter)
• Dairy (milk products and eggs)
• Center store (e.g. detergent, paper products, household cleaning supplies)
• Multicultural (ethnic foods)
• Bulk dried foods
• Animal foods, toys and products

File:ASDA in Keighley.jpg supermarket in Keighley, West Yorkshire]]

File:Supermarket check out.JPG supermarket checkouts]]

File:JapaneseFruit.jpg on display in a supermarket in Japan]]

File:KrogerattheVillages.jpg store, Kroger of the Villages, in Hedwig Village, Texas (Greater Houston)]]

Most merchandise is already packaged when it arrives at the supermarket. Packages are placed on shelves, arranged in aisles and sections according to type of item. Some items, such as fresh produce, are stored in bins. Those requiring an intact cold chain are in temperature-controlled display cases. While branding and store advertising will differ from company to company, the layout of a supermarket remains virtually unchanged. Although big companies spend time giving consumers a pleasant shopping experience, the design of a supermarket is directly connected to the in-store marketing that supermarkets must conduct to get shoppers to spend more money while there. Every aspect of the store is mapped out and attention is paid to color, wording and surface texture. The overall layout of a supermarket is a visual merchandising project that plays a major role. Stores can creatively use a layout to alter customers' perceptions of the atmosphere. Alternatively, they can enhance the store's atmospherics through visual communications (signs and graphics), lighting, colors, and scents.Gajanayake, R., Gajanayake, S., Surangi, H 2011, "The impact of selected visual merchandising techniques on patronage intentions in supermarkets", International Conference on Business and Economic Research, p. 1130–1165 For example, to give a sense of the supermarket being healthy, fresh produce is deliberately located at the front of the store. In terms of bakery items, supermarkets usually dedicate 30 to 40 feet of store space to the bread aisle.{{Cite web |title=Kệ siêu thị |url=https://kesatvn.vn/ke-sieu-thi/ |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=kesatvn.vn}}{{cite web|url=http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/MAGAZINE/PASTISSUES/2011/october2011/Pages/Feature13.aspx|title=NACS Magazine – Category Close Up: Take Bread to the Bank|website=nacsonline.com|access-date=6 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120223032957/http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/MAGAZINE/PASTISSUES/2011/october2011/Pages/Feature13.aspx|archive-date=23 February 2012|url-status=dead}} Supermarkets are designed to "give each product section a sense of individual difference and this is evident in the design of what is called the anchor departments; fresh produce, dairy, delicatessen, meat and the bakery". Each section has different floor coverings, style, lighting and sometimes even individual services counters to allow shoppers to feel as if there are a number of markets within this one supermarket.{{cite journal|last=Browne|first=Karen|date=April 2010|title=Trolley Psychology: Choice unlocks the psychological secrets of the supermarket and shows you how to avoid spending more than you mean to|journal=Australian Consumer's Association Choice Magazine|issue=4|page=60}} Marketers use well-researched techniques to try to control purchasing behavior. The layout of a supermarket is considered by some to consist of a few rules of thumb and three layout principles. Aghazedah, S 2005, "Layout strategies for some of the operations", Management Research News, vol. 28, no. 10, pp. 31–46. Retrieved 8 May 2012, Business Source Complete, EBSCO host. The high-draw products are placed in separate areas of the store to keep drawing the consumer through the store. High impulse and high margin products are placed in the most predominant areas to grab attention. Power products are placed on both sides of the aisle to create increased product awareness, and end caps are used to receive a high exposure of a certain product whether on special, promotion or in a campaign, or a new line.

File:Minatkulim.jpg, Kedah, Malaysia]]

The first principle of the layout is circulation. Circulation is created by arranging product so the supermarket can control the traffic flow of the consumer. Along with this path, there will be high-draw, high-impulse items that will influence the consumer to make purchases which they did not originally intend. Service areas such as restrooms are placed in a location which draws the consumer past certain products to create extra buys. Necessity items such as bread and milk are found at the rear of the store to increase the start of circulation. Cashiers' desks are placed in a position to promote circulation. In most supermarkets, the entrance will be on the right-hand side because some research suggests that consumers who travel in a counter-clockwise direction spend more. However, other researchers have argued that consumers moving in a clockwise direction can form better mental maps of the store leading to higher sales in turn.{{Cite journal|last1=Groeppel-Klein|first1=Andrea|last2=Bartmann|first2=Benedikt|date=2009|title=Turning Bias and Walking Patterns: Consumers' Orientation in a Discount Store|url=http://elibrary.vahlen.de/index.php?doi=10.15358/0344-1369-2009-JRM-1-43|journal=Marketing ZFP|volume=31|issue=JRM 1|pages=43–56|doi=10.15358/0344-1369-2009-JRM-1-43|url-access=subscription}}

The second principle of the layout is coordination. Coordination is the organized arrangement of product that promotes sales. Products such as fast-selling and slow-selling lines are placed in strategic positions in aid of the overall sales plan. Managers sometimes place different items in fast-selling places to increase turnover or to promote a new line.

File:K-SupermarketTarmola.jpg in Tarmola, Porvoo, Finland]]

The third principle is consumer convenience. The layout of a supermarket is designed to create a high degree of convenience to the consumer to make the shopping experience pleasant and increase customer spending. This is done through the character of merchandising and product placement. There are many different ideas and theories in relation to layout and how product layout can influence the purchases made. One theory suggests that certain products are placed together or near one another that are of a similar or complementary nature to increase the average customer spend.Bezawada, R Balachander, S Kannan, PK Venkatesh, S 2009, "Cross-Category Effects of Aisle and Display Placements: A Spatial Modeling Approach and Insights", Journal of Marketing, vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 99–117, 3 May 2012, Business Source Complete. This strategy is used to create cross-category sales similarity. In other words, the toothpaste is next to or adjacent the toothbrushes and the tea and coffee are down the same aisle as the sweet biscuits. These products complement one another and placing them near is one-way marketers try to increase purchases.

For vertical placement, cheap generic brands tend to be on the lowest shelves, products appealing to children are placed at the mid-thigh level, and the most profitable brands are placed at eye level.{{cite news|last1=Park|first1=Michael Y.|title=How to Buy Food: The Psychology of the Supermarket|url=http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/how-to/article/supermarket-psychology|access-date=27 February 2017|work=Bon Appetit|date=30 October 2014}} The fourth principle is the use of color psychology, and the locations of the food,{{Cite news|url=https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/21/living/real-simple-color-shopping/index.html

|title=How color affects your spending

|last=Alpert|first=Yelena Moroz|work=Real Simple|publisher=CNN

|access-date=3 March 2018}} similar to its use in fast food branding.

Consumer psychologists suggest that most buyers tend to enter the store and shop to their right first. Some supermarkets, therefore, choose to place the entrance to the left-hand side as the consumer will likely turn right upon entry, and this allows the consumer to do a full counter-clockwise circle around the store before returning to the checkouts. This suggests that supermarket marketers should use this theory to their advantage by placing their temporary displays of products on the right-hand side to entice you to make an unplanned purchase. Furthermore, aisle ends are extremely popular with product manufacturers, who pay top dollar to have their products located there.Browne, 2010 These aisle ends are used to lure customers into making a snap purchase and to also entice them to shop down the aisle. The most obvious place supermarket layout influences consumers are at the checkout. Small displays of candy, magazines, and drinks are located at each checkout to tempt shoppers while they wait to be served.

The large scale of supermarkets, while often improving cost and efficiency for customers, can place significant economic pressure on suppliers and smaller shopkeepers.{{cite journal|title=Competitive Impact of a New Supermarket|journal=Journal of Marketing Research|date=November 1967|volume=4|issue=4|pages=356–361|last=Bucklin |first=Louis P.|doi=10.2307/3149873|jstor=3149873}}{{cite news |url=http://lubbockonline.com/stories/091599/bus_091599075.shtml |title=Senate takes look at slotting fees |agency=Associated Press |date=15 September 1999}}{{cite web |url=http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.int-opinions.26065 |publisher=European Economic and Social Committee |title=Unfair trading practices / supply chain |date=11 July 2013}}{{cite press release |url=http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/20030113134910.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040405093100/http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/20030113134910.html |url-status=unfit |title=Ten Reasons Supermarket Mergers Are Bad for Consumers |publisher=Friends of the Earth |date=13 January 2003 |archive-date=5 April 2004}}{{cite news |url=http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/growers-demand-inquiry-ombudsman-sought-3627699 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100708154113/http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/growers-demand-inquiry-ombudsman-sought-3627699 |url-status=unfit |title=Growers demand inquiry, ombudsman sought |publisher=TVNZ |date=5 July 2010 |archive-date=8 July 2010}} Supermarkets often generate considerable food waste, although modern technologies such as biomethanation units may be able to process the waste into an economical source of energy.{{cite journal |journal=Environmental Monitoring and Assessment |date=December 2007 |volume=135 |issue=1 |pages=49–53 |title=Leachate from market refuse and biomethanation study |vauthors=Mukherjee SN, Kumar S |pmid=17505906 |doi=10.1007/s10661-007-9703-5|bibcode=2007EMnAs.135...49M |s2cid=11008308 }}{{cite web |date=15 September 2014 |title=Methanisatie – 2009, het jaar van de biomethanisering? |trans-title=Methanation – 2009, the year of biomethanation? |url=http://www.energymag.be/nl/dossiers/methanisatie/58-methanisation/168-2009-het-jaar-van-de-biomethanisering |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140915082018/http://www.energymag.be/nl/dossiers/methanisatie/58-methanisation/168-2009-het-jaar-van-de-biomethanisering |archive-date=15 September 2014 |website=energymag.be}}{{cite book |url=http://www.jie.or.jp/biomass/AsiaBiomassHandbook_e.html |chapter-url=http://www.jie.or.jp/biomass/AsiaBiomassHandbook/English/Part-5_E.pdf |title=Asia Biomass Handbook |chapter=Biomethanation |publisher=Japan Institute of Energy |year=2008 |access-date=11 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150602214900/http://www.jie.or.jp/biomass/AsiaBiomassHandbook_e.html |archive-date=2 June 2015 |url-status=dead}} Also, purchases tracking may help as supermarkets then become better able to size their stock (of perishable goods), reducing food spoilage.

In 1997, the Reverend John Papworth attracted international attention with his criticism of giant supermarkets. For him, they are "places of evil and temptation", destroyers of local communities, and shoplifting in them would be illegal but not sinful.{{Cite web |date=1997-03-29 |title=Ex-priest's justification of stealing gets nowhere |url=https://www.deseret.com/1997/3/29/19303544/ex-priest-s-justification-of-stealing-gets-nowhere/ |access-date=2025-04-19 |website=Deseret News |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=1997-03-16 |title=Priest Says It's Ok To Shoplift From Big Stores |url=https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/mar/16/priest-says-its-ok-to-shoplift-from-big-stores/ |access-date=2025-04-19 |website=Spokesman.com |language=en}}

{{portal|Business and economics|Supermarkets|Companies}}

• {{annotated link|Hypermarket}}
• {{annotated link|List of grocers}}
• {{annotated link|Short food supply chains}}
• {{annotated link|Farmers' market}}s
• {{annotated link|Retail#Types of retail outlets|Types of retail outlets}}

{{Clear}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1= Greer|first1=William R. |last2=Logan |first2=John A.|last3=Willis|first3=Paul S. |date=1986 |title= America the Bountiful: How the Supermarket Came to Main Street : an Oral History|location=Washington, D.C. |publisher= Food Marketing Institute in cooperation with Beatrice Companies|oclc= 14357784}}
• Longstreth, R. W. (1999). The Drive-In, the Supermarket, and the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914-1941. The MIT Press.
• Lorr, B. (2020). The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket. Avery.
• Newman, K. (2012). The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets (Illustrated edition). Columbia University Press.
• Petroski, Henry (November–December 2005). [http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2005/11/shopping-by-design "Shopping by Design"]. American Scientist 93 (6): 491.
• Sowell, Thomas. Basic Economics (Third Edition, 2007 Basic Books). Pages 92–94 describe the competition between the dominant grocery chains in the United States through the 20th century and beyond.
• Yee, A. (2003). Shopping at Giant Foods: Chinese American Supermarkets in Northern California (Illustrated edition). University of Washington Press.

{{Commons category|Supermarkets}}

• [http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/foodstories/index.html Food Stories] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410231056/http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/foodstories/index.html |date=10 April 2021 }} – Explore a century of revolutionary change in UK food culture on the British Library's Food Stories website
• [http://www.groceteria.com/ Groceteria] – supermarket history and architecture from the 1920s to the 1970s
• [http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/04/BUG7PE2DKH1.DTL Scrambling for customers], 4 August 2005, San Francisco Chronicle

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