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Katishi Maake

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H-E-B regains top spot from Amazon as favorite grocer of 2022

H-E-B came in at No. 1 in Dunnhumby’s ranking in 2019, only to be dethroned by Amazon for the next two years. 

H-E-B regains top spot as consumers' favorite grocer of 2022

Erin Cabrey

The new suite of tech aims to be the “antidote to Amazon” for grocers

Breaking down Instacart’s Connected Stores tech

Andrew Adam Newman

Consumers may not notice shrinkflation when cereals are downsized

Honey, I shrank the bunches of oats: ‘Family’ and ‘Giant’ size cereal boxes are getting smaller

Grocery cart and store shelf on a pink background

Grocery

The White House this week cited a new report from DoorDash that showed decreasing food prices across select products as evidence that “inflation has been tamed.”

DoorDash’s State of Local Commerce report, which was released on Monday, used several indexes to indicate dropping and steadying prices, referencing data from grocers on DoorDash Marketplace. Between March and September, its Breakfast Basics Index—which includes three eggs, a glass of milk, a bagel, and an avocado—declined 14% (mostly due to a drop in 

, DoorDash noted). Its Everyday Essentials Index—comprising toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper, laundry detergent, pain medicine, and diapers—remained flat.

The White House cited the data in a briefing on Monday that included a graph claiming that “grocery prices on breakfast items has [sic] dropped 14% in the last six months”—a number not reported by DoorDash.

Prices on many breakfast items continue to rise, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index 

 released last month. Coffee prices have soared 18.9% year over year (YoY), while prices also jumped for juice—3.1% YoY and 1.4% month over month (MoM)—breakfast cereals (0.4% YoY and 1% MoM), and bread (up 1.8% YoY and 0.3% MoM).

While the White House claimed the Everyday Essentials Index fell, DoorDash reported just a two-cent drop nationally. Per the BLS, housekeeping supplies, paper products, and personal care products all increased annually and monthly.

The briefing also claimed annual pricing declines for products including cheese, frozen meals, condiments, and medicines, which have all seen an increase in prices ranging from 0.6% to 1.2% YoY, according to the BLS.

DoorDash did not respond to Retail Brew’s request for comment. Journalist Nancy Levine Stearns 

 on Bluesky that a DoorDash spokesperson said, “We did not write that,” in reference to the White House’s statement that inflation had been “tamed,” while a spokesperson 

 SFGate the report was not created in “tandem” with lawmakers.

This week, the Trump administration signaled plans to 

 on its tariff policy for some food imports, including coffee, that are seeing skyrocketing prices in an effort to bring prices down. Overall, food prices rose 0.2% MoM in September, with four of the six grocery indexes increasing. The CPI for October, scheduled to be released on Thursday, has been delayed due to the government shutdown.

A graphic of a food receipt in the shape of an upward arrow

White House cites DoorDash data to indicate ‘inflation has been tamed’

The Trump administration’s briefing this week made claims about consumer prices that ran counter to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index.

It’s been over a week since a lapse in funding for SNAP—the first-ever pause in funding for the program during a government shutdown—has left 42 million Americans recipients without payments to buy groceries since November 1.

After a federal judge in Rhode Island last week 

 the Trump administration must use emergency funds to finance the program, the USDA said it planned to fund 50%—then 65%—of the benefits. A back-and-forth in court followed, as the federal judge ordered the USDA on Thursday to pay out full benefits, which several states have begun to do, though the Trump administration 

. On Friday night, the Supreme Court issued an administrative stay that 

 Trump’s emergency request to pause the order until a lower court issued its ruling. The First Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday declined the appeal, and the Trump administration 

 it plans to continue to challenge the lower court rulings. The Trump administration this weekend also asked states that had begun paying out benefits to 

 in revenue for the more than 250,000 retailers that accept SNAP benefits. Walmart accounts for over a quarter of SNAP sales, followed by Kroger at 8.6% and Costco at 5.9%, according to Numerator. In the wake of the funding lapse, 

 have grown, and companies like GoPuff, DoorDash, and Instacart have offered coupon codes and waived fees for SNAP recipients. Grocers like Meijer, Hy-Vee, and H-E-B have also donated to local food banks amid the USDA’s 

 last week that retailers cannot offer special discounts to SNAP recipients.

Statements from advocacy and trade groups like the National Grocers Association (NGA) and the Food Research & Action Center identified the impacts of the funding lapse, not only on grocers’ revenue, but also their employees (SNAP funds $20 billion in wages, per NGA), and farmers, pointing to the potential for cut hours and fresh food loss.

In a number of posts on Reddit, posters who identified themselves as grocery and retail employees expressed concerns over such issues, as well as handling declined EBT cards and the potential for theft. Several Reddit posters claiming to be Walmart workers reported their hours had begun to be cut, while others claimed meat department sales were down. Walmart did not respond to Retail Brew’s request for comment.

Beyond larger grocers like Walmart, the non-issuance of SNAP benefits also disproportionately impacts grocers in low-income and rural areas, where SNAP spending accounts for a larger percentage of sales. Many New York City grocers told 

 the SNAP lapse could mean employee layoffs, changes in the products they sell, or even closing their doors. Amid proposed cuts to the program earlier this year, the Center for American Progress reported 27,000 retailers could be at 

, including more than 3,700 smaller grocery stores and 600 farmers markets.

Grocers, employees under pressure amid a week without SNAP funding

The lapse in funding for SNAP benefits impacts big players like Walmart and local grocers in low-income and rural communities. 

The last 25 years in the grocery industry have been defined by a handful of big M&A deals—and dealbreakers—as grocers sought to compete with giants like Walmart. From the acquisition that bred industrywide panic to the deal that spelled disaster for a megamerger and the quieter consolidation that 

 worked out, these are the M&A moves that shaped grocery’s past and and likely its future.

Many of Kroger and Albertsons’s deals in the early 2000s would eventually come into play during their own failed effort to merge.

In 2006, SuperValu, alongside CVS and Cerberus Capital Management, agreed to buy Albertsons for $17.4 billion, a move that hit many snags, particularly 

 some chains, including Albertsons, to a Cerberus-headed investor group in 2013.

Then in 2015 came one of the quarter century’s biggest transactions: Albertsons bought Safeway in a $9.4 billion deal. To gain FTC approval, the two 

 168 stores, most to small Washington-based chain Haggen. That move proved 

 for Haggen, which crumbled under such rapid expansion, closing stores and selling many back to Albertsons in 2016.

Ghosts of these M&A mishaps lingered over Kroger and Albertsons’s yearslong attempt to complete 

 in US history, which they announced in 2022. When Kroger said it planned to 

 400+ stores to distributor C&S Wholesale Grocers—which only ran about 160 stores at the time—to gain FTC approval, regulators 

 to the not-so-great Haggen situation in 2015. That Haggen move remains “a cautionary tale,” Sujeet Naik, analyst at Coresight, noted.

“It continues to shape how regulators scrutinize large consolidation in the grocery industry today,” he said.

Phil Lempert, founder and CEO of SupermarketGuru, said Albertsons’s unfavorable deal with SuperValu, where a retailer was sold to a distributor, spelled doom for the similar C&S deal. “It’s a different DNA, and the [deals] that have worked really well are where the acquirer has the same DNA,” he said.

 about the divestiture and the competition between the two grocers proved to be an uphill battle, ultimately sounding the death knell for future big deals.

“The collapse of the deal marked the clear end of the megamerger era among grocery chains,” Naik said.

In 2017, Amazon—at the time a “pure-play online retailer,” as Naik put it—made major moves to enter brick-and-mortar grocery by 

 Whole Foods for $13.4 billion. Naik and Lempert agreed the deal initially instilled a sense of panic and fear among traditional grocers.

“Having Amazon get into the grocery business…with all the money, with all the technology, with all the insights that Amazon gathers about customer behavior based on ordering, they didn’t know what to expect,” Lempert said.

That panic proved to be unwarranted as Amazon’s efforts to 

 brick-and-mortar retail stores and introduce 

 to dominate the grocery market and up its e-commerce game.

But Naik noted Amazon’s entrance into offline retail did end up pushing more traditional grocers online, jumpstarting digital transformations, boosting partnerships with third-party delivery players, and ultimately signalling the rise of today’s omnichannel grocery industry.

Ahold Delhaize leads regional consolidation

Amid these deals was a sizable but largely undramatic consolidation when Dutch grocer Ahold and rival Belgian grocer Delhaize 

 for a $28 billion merger that brought East Coast banners like Stop & Shop, Giant, and Food Lion under one parent. After a few divestitures, the deal closed in 2016, and since then, its banners have been largely successful—aside from some 

The merger was “smart,” Lempert said, particularly as the combined company continued to run the grocers under their individual banners rather than unite them under one.

“People underestimate the power of regional grocers and the affinity that shoppers have toward them,” he said.

Regional grocery moves have been the more successful deals over the last few years, Naik and Lempert said, like Raley’s 

 of Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Markets in the Northeast in 2021. More recently, Aldi’s 

 Southeastern Grocers included converting 220 struggling Winn-Dixie and Harveys to Aldi locations, quickly growing the discounter’s presence in the South.

Regional deals will likely be the shape of things to come, Lempert and Naik both noted. Such deals help retailers quickly expand their footprint with little regulatory pushback, and more effectively compete with dominant players—as long as they don’t try to simply mimic them.

“You’ve got to figure out what your niche is and do it really well,” Lempert said. “In grocery, you can’t sit still. You’ve got to keep on moving, and the movement has to be with your consumer.”

The grocery M&A moves that defined the past quarter century

From the Whole Foods-Amazon panic to the deal that squashed the future of megamergers, many M&A moves helped shape the future of grocery. 

As grocery prices rise this holiday season, consumers are trying to give thanks without breaking the bank.

According to a NielsenIQ survey, 58% of consumers are “extremely concerned” about high grocery prices this Thanksgiving. As a result, a quarter of households will buy more private label products, with 31% opting for them over national brands and only 5% of consumers prioritizing serving national brands for Thanksgiving.

Consumers will also save $$ by hosting smaller celebrations, shopping at discount retailers, and serving fewer side dishes (RIP, green bean casserole). Even as prices continue to rise, NIQ found turkey or another main protein remain the top non-negotiable Thanksgiving item, followed, of course, by dessert.

However, according to a recent Empower survey, 47% of consumers are willing to swap their bird for a cheaper option—38% said they would opt for roasted chicken instead. Almost half of consumers are cutting down on pricey spices, and 30% are considering nixing the traditional meal altogether for burgers, pizza, or fast food.

As they plan their menus, about a third will use AI to score deals and design a budget-conscious menu, while 45% will use it to compare prices across retailers.

Several grocers are offering Thanksgiving meal deals this year to help consumers plan an inexpensive spread.

Lidl introduced a 10-person Thanksgiving meal for $36—$10 less than its offering last year—which it’s touting as the lowest per-person cost among retailers this year. Aldi’s $40, 10-person meal, which spans 21 products, is also $7 cheaper than last year’s. After offering a six-person meal under $30 last year, Amazon is selling a similarly priced $25 Thanksgiving meal for five.

Walmart rolled out its fourth, “most affordable,” edition of its Thanksgiving Meal Basket featuring a 10-person meal for under $40. After 

 its four-person meal price from $25 to $20 last year, Target is marketing an “under $20” offering. When Retail Brew price-checked some of these offerings across several locations nationwide, Walmart’s meal consistently came out to about $39.88 or less, while Target’s varied by location, coming in at just over $19 in some locations and just over $21 in others.

While money is clearly top-of-mind for consumers planning their Thanksgiving meal this year, Empower found that the majority of consumers think conversations about money should, ironically, be off the table on Thanksgiving.

A turkey as an over inflated Thanksgiving parade balloon

How consumers are cutting costs this Thanksgiving 

Retailers from Aldi to Walmart are offering low-price Thanksgiving meal options to cater to budget-conscious consumers. 

Lidl is working to make a big impact on the US grocery industry.

Owned by the Schwarz Group, Lidl is one of Europe’s largest grocers, with 11,550 stores across 32 countries. But it’s less known stateside, opening its first US store in 2017 and relaunching last October with the tagline “The Super-EST Market,” in an effort to build brand recognition.

This year, the discount retailer moved up to the top spot in Newsweek’s Best Supermarket rankings, has worked its way into Dunnhumby’s annual Retailer Preference Index, and is seeing notable 

. It’s also been growing its footprint, now at more than 185 US stores, with new locations including Atlanta and Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and is hoping this expansion, along with low prices (including its signature 49-cent croissant), will reel in 

 at the discounter in 2023, spoke with Retail Brew about the company’s growth strategy.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and 

What has Lidl’s expansion strategy been, specifically within urban areas?

New York is a natural fit for us, but it’s also a brand-building exercise. Many, many retail brands have gone through this thinking process. We’re like, “If we want to be known, we need to be in New York, right? We need to be recognized and be seen in New York.” And so that’s one of the reasons why we’ve expanded into New York. The customers are there. Our customers are there. The operational complexities can be very tough…but it’s worth it for us to be in those high visibility locations where literally millions of people will, of course, be able to see us.

You’re not catering your product mix at your stores to the demographic of New Yorkers or of people in different locales. What is the thought process behind that standardization?

In terms of true localization—like having a kosher set in New York, which many grocery stores do, we are not set up to do that—and our operating model depends on very consistent operational practices. We have handbooks about how to do everything, fromloading the truck to restocking the shelves. All that has to be very consistent. When you start tweaking the assortment and trying to localize it, you get sales guaranteed, because customers will buy those products you’ve selected for them. But it just creates too much complexity.

We don’t have to get our shoppers’ last dollar. We want them to come to us first. We recognize that there will be things that they go somewhere else to get because there will be some needs we just can’t meet.

How much runway do you have left for further efficiency? Is there a point when there are just no more efficiencies to eke out?

Every year, we always think, “Wow, we did it, but we’ll never be able to do that again.” Then you have to do it again. The fact is, there’s always more to take out. And the deeper you get into it, you stop finding $10 bills in the couch cushions, but you still find quarters and nickels and dimes that you can scrape out. Projects that in terms of the technology cost or the implementation cost wouldn’t have made sense a few years ago, we keep them in the back of our mind, and they come into focus as we get deeper and deeper into the cost efficiency. I was in a store recently, and we were working on a project to basically make sure that the store’s planograms and the sequence in which the categories appear is completely consistent across the fleet, so that when a pallet of goods comes in, it’s built such that stuff on the top is here and the top goes here and the next stuff goes here and the next stuff goes here—and it’s all in one aisle. That’s a level of efficiency that we wouldn’t even try to achieve years ago, but now we’ve done all the other things, that’s what we’re down to.

When you’ve done the easier stuff, then you have to start doing the hard stuff.

It’s not necessarily the right idea to have a product that’s much higher quality that’s higher priced. We can convince ourselves it’s better value, but if it doesn’t line up that way for the consumer, or they don’t understand the value, that doesn’t work.

Every place that I’ve ever worked, the people working there convinced themselves that their value was great, and it’s too easy to do that. You can always say, “Well, yeah, we’re a little bit more expensive, but our apples are big. We have a this-size apple, and their apples are that size, so our value is actually great.” You can convince yourself of anything. But what we try to do is put ourselves in the consumer’s shoes and say, “Does she actually care about that?” If your apples are cheaper, but ours are a little more expensive, but bigger, does she care? And probably not, actually. So we really need to be disciplined about providing value the way the consumer expects to experience it.

Four questions with Lidl US CEO Joel Rampoldt 

The discount retailer has been expanding in the US as it works to attract value-conscious shoppers.

As grocery prices soar—inflation hit a 

 in August—Giant Eagle is betting on slashed prices for essentials as a strategy to keep shoppers coming back.

The regional, family-owned grocery chain, which operates 200+ stores spanning Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Indiana, late last month introduced its new “Because It Matters” strategy, encompassing improvements from price cuts to fresher produce and new shopping carts.

It’s been a “big year” for the nearly 100-year-old retailer, Justin Weinstein, EVP and chief merchandising and marketing officer at Giant Eagle, told Retail Brew. The chain, headquartered outside of Pittsburgh, 

 its GetGo convenience store arm to Circle K-owner Alimentation Couche-Tard for $1.6 billion and 

 filling prescriptions for closed Rite Aid locations in Pennsylvania and Ohio with its in-store pharmacies.

“Those two things really laid the groundwork for, ‘How do we create a plan for the investment back into our business?’” he said.

With its three-pronged strategy, the grocer is investing $100 million to provide 

 for price-conscious consumers, improving product quality and service, and upgrading its in-store shopping experience. The efforts, it hopes, will combat waning loyalty as it vies with larger players for a share of 

 on its home turf from retailers like Walmart. In addition, Wegmans is 

 its first Pittsburgh-area store in 2027.

“We’re eyes wide open about the fact that our customers have a lot of choices, and people are looking to the discounters, they’re looking to the club stores,” he said. “This entire strategy is based on, ‘How do we give them more reason to put more in their basket and come to us?’”

The savings portion of the plan is divided into two efforts. The first was promotional, with a one-week $1 Deal initiative offering 1,000+ items in its stores for $1 in late September. The discounts included popular items like drinks, pasta, yogurt, and baby food. Additionally, the retailer is lowering prices across 300 staple items—with an average reduction of 17%, the company said—through the rest of the year to give customers “immediate relief from inflation.” These lowered prices span eggs ($2.99 for a dozen), Cheerios ($3.99 for 10.6 oz), and Land O Lakes butter (1 lb. for $4.99), along with products like honeycrisp apples, Idaho potatoes, Barilla pasta, Campbell’s Soup, and Oreo cookies. Several of those prices are competitive with pricing at Pittsburgh-area Walmart and Target locations, Retail Brew found.

While a rise in sales volume is a metric for success with this strategy, Weinstein said the effort is aimed at maintaining customer loyalty and attracting new customers.

“We want to be that destination through the holiday and we don’t want people to question week to week, ‘Can they get that value with Giant Eagle or not?’” Weinstein said.

While he said the grocer will continue to grow its private label assortment (and many private label items like canned beans, brown sugar, frozen vegetables, and shredded cheese are included in the lower-price effort), national brands continue to play an important role in stores. Weinstein said Giant Eagle worked “hand-in-hand” with them on these pricing and promotional shifts to prioritize what customers care about, particularly when it comes to value.

“If items ultimately are sitting at the end of that tail, we’d rather have more at a lower price of the items that customers want than the 100th item that doesn’t necessarily appeal to them,” Weinstein said, clarifying that cutting down large amounts of its assortment isn’t part of the strategy.

Giant Eagle is investing not only in lower prices, but also upping product quality and the overall in-store experience based on both customer and team member feedback.

The grocer is training more in-store butchers, bakers, cake decorators, and cheesemongers, and increasing training to improve customer service skills. It’s also reviewing the supply chain for its most perishable produce categories (e.g. berries, grapes, tomatoes, and salads) to provide more fresh options for consumers and renovating a dozen locations in Pennsylvania and Ohio, improving decor, fixtures, food cases, and store layout, and growing its prepared food section. Plus it’s replacing its metal shopping carts—which tend to “creak and crack” as shoppers roll them through the store—with all-plastic ones.

“Retail is detail,” Weinstein said. “It’s how you pull all of those things together that makes us successful.”

Giant Eagle is investing millions to cut prices and retain customers

Giant Eagle hopes its new “Because It Matters” strategy with keeping shoppers loyal as grocery competition grows. 

This regional grocer is investing millions to cut prices and retain customers

Retail Brew was in Las Vegas last week, but not to gamble, see a 4D version of 

 at the Sphere, or attend the Backstreet Boys residency (they weren’t in town—we checked). We were in Sin City for Groceryshop to hear retail and CPG leaders break down the winning strategies and continuing struggles in the grocery business today. Here are the topics everyone was talking about.

The word “value” has long been used in the grocery industry, but as the topic’s meaning has shifted and risen in importance amid continued inflation and consumers’ spending constraints, the topic was especially emphasized during this year’s edition of the show.

In a session centered on “value-obsessed” shoppers, Ryan Draude, head of loyalty and digital at Giant Food, noted that value has historically centered on convenience, assortment, and being a one-stop shop, but the grocers need to pivot as customers—even those that are part of its loyalty program—are heading to different retailers to chase deals, leading to dropping sales.

In a keynote session, Joel Rampoldt, CEO of Lidl US, said consumers are more focused on value than ever before, and as a discount retailer, it’s focused on finding efficiencies to “really grind out every nickel, dime, and penny of the cost to get to the best possible value.”

,” is doubling down on more deals and sales than ever, its chief merchandising and marketing officer, Sonya Gafsi Oblisk, said. It aims to have a “sea of yellow” sale signs when customers enter the store, and customers are relying on it; growth on sale items is double that of non-sale items year over year, she said. The retailer has also been expanding its private label offerings with both conventional and organic items, to emphasize both “relative value” as well as “absolute value,” AKA, a low price point, Oblisk said.

While AI and its applications remain a buzzy topic among retailers and brands, with companies like Walmart, Colgate-Palmolive, and DoorDash eager to dig into the topic, many leaders and showgoers also showed signs of being jaded, too—a few even joked about the obligation to talk or ask about it.

“There is such a focus on AI, if you take a shot every time you hear it in this conference, you’d be drunk by 10am,” Giant’s Draude noted. While he said the grocer will be using AI-powered personalization through a new partnership with Upside, he also noted that 40% of its consumers don’t even use the Giant app, so it’s also turned to offering deals through in-store kiosks.

“Don’t try to force something that’s not meant to be,” he said.

Others touched on the importance of humans being involved in the AI process. When asked about AI, Nitin Murali, VP of supply chain excellence at Gallo, referenced the recent “

” study from Harvard Business Review and said the wine giant is “focused on human collaboration,” and that companies need to fix “human-to-human problems” before bringing in AI.

“AI is an amplifier,” he said. “It amplifies great collaboration. It amplifies bad collaboration as well. It makes bad collaboration catastrophic.”

Similarly, Sambit Dutta, VP of digital strategy and transformation at Nestlé, noted the CPG giant aims to keep “humans in the loop” when using AI, ensuring humans are ultimately the final decision-makers.

GLP-1s and their impact on retailers and brands was also mentioned across a number of sessions (including one with Danone North America CMO Linda Bethea, moderated by Retail Brew).

Joe Sta-Romana, US chief customer officer at Haleon, mentioned a successful information campaign with Walgreens that emphasized its brands like Centrum and Tums aimed specifically at the needs of GLP-1 users. Whole Foods’s Oblisk, meanwhile, said the retailer isn’t marketing directly to consumers using GLP-1s with specific campaigns or devoted in-store sections because she said it naturally (pun intended) has a focus on foods suitable for these consumers.

 emphasizing the 500+ ingredients it bans from stores with new paper bags listing them on the outside, in line with many discussions at the show that also centered

around terms like “ultra-processed foods,” the movement to remove 

 from products, and shifting consumer preferences as more shoppers scrutinize ingredient labels. While neither RFK or his 

 tied to these efforts were mentioned by name, Thrive Market CEO Nick Green alluded to a “political moment where folks are really standing up and taking a stand.”

And the closing main stage keynote featured two “better-for-you” brands, Poppi and Sweet Loren’s, with Allison Ellsworth, Poppi’s co-founder and chief brand officer, underscoring that products with a lack of artificial ingredients and dyes and lower sugar will continue to be big.