In a world of oversize food — genetically modified apples, super-size fries, and venti coffees — one thing may be coming up smaller: grocery stores.
According to the New York Times, grocers across the country from Safeway to Wal-Mart are turning to stores with smaller square footage. Supermarket retailers, like Jewel-Osco, who is building a smaller-format store in Chicago, are hoping to capitalize on an untapped segment of time-starved shoppers who are looking for an affordable meal to go without menu prices, or who just want to pick up a handful of grocery items.
These chains aren't shuttering the warehouse-sized predecessors, but hoping to gain market share as competition grows cutthroat. Both convenience stores and drugstores such as CVS are selling more groceries and fresher prepared foods, and British retail giant Tesco began stateside expansion last Fall.
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This sort of makes sense, but...isn't that what convenience stores and fast food are for? The whole ppoint of a large supermarket is to get things you can't get at the smaller places...
omg. my parents live in a small town and in a city. my grocery store has EVERYTHING and more...but now when i go to visit, i might want to go pick something up i like, and of course they don't have it. it sucks.
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