The Industry

The Specialty Food Association (SFA) has released its annual State of the Specialty Food Industry Report, revealing that the specialty food market reached total sales of $170.4 billion in 2020, a 13 percent increase since 2018.

The food retail industry in the United States comprises foods sold at grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores, mass merchandisers, and food service facilities. Major players in the industry include Walmart, Kroger, and Walgreens. However, despite the growth of such major supermarket chains and the emergence of online food purchases, there is still a significant network of specialty food and convenience stores meeting the needs of local neighborhoods.
In the United States, retail and food services sales amounted to over eight trillion U.S. dollars in 2022, an increase of more than nine percent from the previous year. The total number of supermarkets and other grocery stores in the U.S. has declined slightly to about 63 thousand, with sales of that format hitting an estimated 810 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, which accounted for 85 percent of the U.S. food and beverage retail market a year earlier.