A new scientific survey of shoppers across the US used all the latest methods and techniques to discover which grocery store is America’s favourite. And the result left researchers gob-smacked. Tech-nically, it’s not even a real grocery store!
A typical Japanese 7-Eleven Konbini: More like a mini-supermarket
than a traditional North American convenience store…
The team did everything right. They carefully interviewed a small but representative, balanced cadre of 1,220 survey participants from across the U.S. over the months of October, November, and Decem-ber of 2024, using approved methods. Formed and phrased their survey questions carefully to avoid bias. And employed academically-respected methods of ranking the results to determine the relative popularity of American grocery stores…
Hold onto your hats
The overall ‘winner’ of the YouGov poll, with 65 percent on the popular vote (PV) was…. 7-Eleven! Not bad for a ‘grocery store’ that’s technically not even a real grocery store.
Trader Joe’s came close behind in second place scoring 64 percent on the popularity scale (64 per-cent PV). Followed by Whole Foods with 61 percent.
Great news for 7-Eleven!
The survey was unexpected but great news for 7-Eleven, I’m sure. They had just gotten over announ-cing how they would be expanding their North American stores’ footprints and product selections to more closely emulate their Asian cousins. Making them true neighbourhood grocery outlets.
That unexpected but not illogical change came late last year, based on extensive research in Japan where the expanded-store concept is already widespread – and wildly popular. It’s been pointed out that the so-called’ Konbini’ model is eerily similar to the age-old British ‘corner shop’, which still adorns many an intersection in that nation’s ubquitous towns and villages.
Back to the future…
I well remember the corner stores of my very early childhood here in Canada. There was one in al-most every neighbourhood. They were clones of the traditional British corner shop (see photo, top of page). No surprise, since the neighbourhoods in my birth town had been settled by overwhelmingly WASP folks in the pre and just-post Second World War period.
After the war, in the late 1940s and early 50s, successive waves of European immigration began, as ‘displaced persons’ (‘DPs’) arrived from their war-ravaged home places. And corner stores were still found seldom more than a block or two away from any residential address, making of them them feel more ‘at home’.
There were 4 ‘corner stores’ within a 10-15 min. stroll of our house; one on our own street. (As in the UK, even today, not all were literally on corners.)
Alas… The majority of these were gone, or had converted to what we now call ‘covenience’ stores, by the time I was deemed old enough to walk to our closest unaccompanied by Mom.
My take
So… Does the foregoing augur well for a return to the 1950s – like Marty McFly in Back to the future (1985) – for our daily grocery needs? Maybe that’s a good thing. We all need more exercise. And we could all benefit – along with the atmosphere and the climate as a whole – from fewer fossil-fuelled vehicles put-putting around.
The Konbini model is already becoming more popular again in European cities that have bravely banned motor vehicles in their cores, and declared themselves ‘people friendly’.
I for one hope there is a groundswell revival of grassroots neighbouhood grocery stores in the offing here in North America. We might even meet our next-door neighbours on our way walking down there…
~ Maggie J.