The 15 Largest Grocery Stores In The United States

By Caitlin Mazur
Jul. 20, 2022
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Largest Grocery Stores Research Summary

  • The largest grocery store in the U.S. is Walmart, with a year-end sales of $573 billion and a market share of 26%.

  • As of 2021, the U.S. grocery store industry has a market size of $811.5 billion.

  • There are currently 63,419 grocery store businesses in the U.S.

  • The global grocery store industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 3.0% through 2030.

Whether you’re looking for household cleaning supplies or 2% milk, you’ve likely stepped foot inside a grocery store. Grocery stores are shops primarily engaged in selling a general range of foot products, both fresh and packaged.

Grocery stores operate in a variety of different styles including family-owned operations (IGA), boutique chains (Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s), to larger supermarket chains (Walmart, ShopRite, Kroger).

During the COVID-19, grocery stores were prompted to make online ordering and delivery available to their customers, prompting many of the larger chains to offer shopping both in physical stores and electronic stores, if they hadn’t already.

The top grocery stores in the United States are:

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A Closer Look at the Top Grocery Stores in the US

  1. Walmart

    2022 Year-End Sales: $573 billion

    Walmart is an American retail corporation that operates chains of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and officially opened in 1969.

    The organization also has ownership of all Sam Club’s stores across the country. Walmart U.S. is the company’s largest division, making up about 65% of Walmart’s total sales for 2019.

    In June 2016, Walmart and Sam’s Club announced that they would launch a grocery delivery service. The initiative was successful, leading Walmart to expand its services to 100 metropolitan regions across the country.

    In October of 2019, Walmart announced that customers in 29 states could use its grocery service for adult beverage purchases as well.

  2. Find Walmart Jobs Near Me

  3. CVS Health

    2022 Year-End Sales: $309 billion

    CVS Health is a healthcare company that owns CVS pharmacies so many of us are familiar with it. Headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Consumer Value Stores (CVS) was founded in 1963.

    The company offers several over-the-counter private label brands including grocery brands, household products, and beauty and skin products. In 2017, CVS acquired Aetna, completing the acquisition in November 2018.

  4. Find CVS Health Jobs Near Me

  5. Costco Wholesale

    2022 Year-End Sales: $192 billion

    This American multinational corporation operates a large chain of membership-only warehouses. Headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, the company first opened in 1983 in Seattle.

    As of 2019, Costco owned and operated a total of 803 warehouses and employed 254,000 full and part-time employees. In 2020, Costco boasted 105.5 million members. Costco was the first company in history to grow from zero to $3 billion in sales in under six years.

    The company carries less distinct products than typical wholesale distributors and is picky about what products it stocks, typically refusing items they feel are priced too high. The company also has no public relations department and has never bought outside advertising to promote their stores or products.

  6. Find Costco Wholesale Jobs Near Me

  7. Kroger

    2022 Year-End Sales: $137.888 billion

    The Kroger Company, also known as Kroger, is an American retail company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kroger is ranked #23 on the Fortune 500 largest US corporations, based on revenue.

    The organization owns and operates 2,750 supermarkets and department stores in 35 states across the country. Their stores include supermarkets, hypermarkets, superstores, department stores, and jewelry stores.

    In addition, they operate food processing and manufacturing facilities, supermarket fuel centers, pharmacies, and in-store medical clinics.

  8. Find Kroger Jobs Near Me

  9. Amazon

    2022 Year-End Sales: $116.44 billion

    Amazon is the fastest-growing grocery store retailer with a year-over-year percentage gain of 24.52% in sales. Although they don’t have physical stores, consumers are so reliant on other necessities on Amazon, providing groceries makes the user experience an all-in-one shop.

    Amazon Fresh, the subsidiary of Amazon.com, is a grocery delivery service available in most major U.S. cities. The company’s model is innovative, allowing customers to ship, reserve times to pick up groceries, have them loaded into their cars at the store, or delivered to their home.

  10. Find Amazon Jobs Near Me

  11. Sam’s Club

    2022 Year-End Sales: $73.6 billion

    Sam’s Club is the second membership-only retail warehouse on our list and is owned and operated by Walmart Inc. It was founded in 1983 and named after founder Sam Walton. As of late 2020, Sam’s Club owned and operated 599 membership warehouses across the United States.

    In 2018, Sam’s Club opened a mobile-first retail store where customers could use their mobile apps to scan and pay for products, as well as ordering ahead of time with same-day pickup.

  12. Find Sam’s Club Jobs Near Me

  13. Albertsons

    2022 Year-End Sales: $71.887 billion

    This American grocery company is headquartered in Boise, Idaho, and operates 2,253 stores as of 2020. The organization grew extensively following its 2015 merger with Safeway for $9.2 billion and smaller acquisitions following.

    Albertsons operates stores including Acme Markets, Albertsons and Albertsons Market, Amigos, Andronico’s, Carrs, Haggen, Jewel-Osco, Lucky, Market Street, Randalls, Safeway, Shaw’s, United Supermarkets, Vons, and more.

  14. Find Albertsons Jobs Near Me

  15. H-E-B

    2022 Year-End Sales: $32.8 billion

    This privately held supermarket chain is based out of San Antonio, Texas with over 340 stores throughout Texas and northern Mexico.

    Their products include general groceries as well as services such as auto health, fuel, ticket sales, utilities, and licenses. H-E-B was ranked #12 on Forbes’ 2019 list of America’s Largest Private Companies. The organization is philanthropic, donating 5% of its pre-tax profits to charities.

  16. Find H-E-B Jobs Near Me

  17. CS Wholesale Grocers

    2022 Year-End Sales: $30.0 billion

    This American wholesale distributor of food and grocery store items is headquartered in New Hampshire. CS Wholesale Grocers owns the Piggly Wiggly grocery brand and the Best Yet private label brand.

    The organization provides products and services to Giant-Carlisle, Giant-Landover, Stop Shop, Safeway, Winn-Dixie, and Target stores.

  18. Find CS Wholesale Grocers Jobs Near Me

  19. Target

    2022 Year-End Sales: $24 billion

    This American retailer was founded in 1962, expanding heavily in the 1980s. The company introduced new store formats in the 1990s and has found success in the industry as a cheap but chic player.

    As of 2019, Target owned and operated 1,844 stores across the country. They have stores that are the typical Target as well as hypermarkets called “SuperTarget” and small-format stores.

  20. Find Target Jobs Near Me

  21. Meijer

    Year-End Sales (USD billions in 2022): $19.5

    This American supercenter chain is headquartered in Michigan and serves the midwest. Founded in 1962 as a supermarket chain, Meijer is the pioneer of the modern supercenter concept.

    It is one of the largest privately-owned companies in the United States and offers regular grocery items, clothing, footwear, gasoline, bedding, furniture, jewelry, health and beauty products, sporting equipment, toys, housewares, electronics, and pet supplies, among other things.

  22. Find Meijer Jobs Near Me

  23. Publix

    2022 Year-End Sales: $13.2 billion

    Most commonly known as Public, this employee-owned supermarket is headquartered in Lakeland, Florida. Publix is a private corporation operating in the southeastern United States as far north as Stafford, Virginia, and as far south as Key West, Florida.

    As of the end of 2019, Publix had 1,239 retail locations, cooking schools, corporate offices, grocery distribution centers, and manufacturing facilities.

  24. Find Publix Jobs Near Me

  25. Dollar General

    2022 Year-End Sales: $8.8 billion

    The Dollar General Corporation was founded in 1939 and is currently headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. As of January 2020, the company owns and operates 16,278 stores. Over the years, the company has become one of the most profitable stores in the rural United States.

    Their stores sell products from familiar name brands like Clorox, Energizer, Procter Gamble, Hanes, Coca-Cola, Mars, and more. They also carry a store brand called “DG” which offers inexpensive household products through their stores.

  26. Find Dollar General Jobs Near Me

  27. Walgreens Boots Alliance

    2022 Year-End Sales: $2.2 billion

    Walgreens Boots Alliance is an American holding company that owns Walgreens, Boots, and a handful of pharmaceutical manufacturing, wholesale, and distribution companies.

    This organization is divided into three divisions: Retail Pharmacy USA, Retail Pharmacy International, and Pharmaceutical Wholesale, which incorporates Alliance Healthcare. This business operates globally in over 25 countries.

  28. Rite Aid

    2022 Year-End Sales: $24.568 million

    This American drugstore chain is based in Camp Hill Pennsylvania and boasts almost 2500 locations across the country as of 2020. Its first store was based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was called Thrift D Discount Center.

    It debuted as a public company in 1968 and has since acquired several companies to help their growth, including Muir Drug, Remes Drug, Lippert Pharmacy, Read’s Drug Store, People’s Drug, Hook’s Drug Stores, Thrifty PayLess, Eckerd Pharmacy, Brooks Pharmacy, and more.

    In 2015, Walgreens announced that it would acquire Rite Aid, merging two of the United State’s three largest pharmacy chains. However, after meeting several antitrust issues, the merger was canceled, resulting in Walgreens’ purchase of 1,932 Rite Aid stores.

  29. Find Rite Aid Jobs Near Me

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Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research. Caitlin holds a degree in English from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA.

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