Regional Chain Tops Grocer Rankings

What does it take to strongly connect with today’s grocery shoppers? For answers to that query, look no further than H-E-B, a regional chain that’s based in San Antonio and steadily growing its presence in its home state, reports data analytics firm dunnhumby.

For the third time in the past four years, H-E-B again topped the rankings in the annual dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index (RPI), an in-depth look at the $1 trillion U.S. grocery market. The annual study, which includes a survey of 11,000 U.S. consumers, found that “saving customers money” – through price, promotions, and rewards – is the most important predictor for retailers to have stronger, long-term market success in the United States.

That pillar has been increasing in importance over the last eight years, with 38% of a retailer’s long-term success now based on their price, promotions, and rewards proposition, the highest percentage in the history of the RPI.

“Since releasing the first U.S. Grocery RPI eight years ago, retailers and shoppers have weathered Covid, supply chain disruptions, agricultural shortages due to climate impacts and a prolonged period of high food inflation that have reshaped shopping behavior and how Americans perceive the grocery retail environment,” said Matt O’Grady, dunnhumby’s President of the Americas. “Clients across the grocery retail sector understand that market success is dependent upon saving shoppers money and implementing innovative pricing technologies to maintain their customer base.”

Other key findings from the study:

• Three of the top four retailers (H-E-B, Market Basket and WinCo) are regional supermarkets, with the 15 additional retailers in the first quartile made up of a cross-section of non-traditional, national banners in club, discount, online, and superstore formats.
• Kroger and Albertson’s banners suffered ranking declines, with particularly steep declines in states where there were ongoing, high-profile court cases regarding their now-defunct plan to merge. Both King Soopers (Kroger banner) and Albertson’s declined in many areas of the value proposition, which may be a sign of the negative halo cast by the merger news headlines.
• Amazon, the top U.S. Grocery Retailer in 2021 and 2022, fell out of the top three for the first time in eight years, landing in the sixth spot. Part of this drop in rankings is due to the digital pillar having its first retreat in importance. Digital, the third most important pillar, fell from its high in 2023 of 18.5% to 16% in 2024.
• Lidl and Trader Joe’s made significant gains in rankings in 2024. Lidl ascended 14 spots, to the 17th position, thanks to modest improvements in a few areas: prices, digital, and operations. This, coupled with the uptick in importance of savings (their strength) and downtick in importance of quality (their weakness), explained their jump. Trader Joe’s, a former top U.S. Grocery Retailer in the RPI, stopped its slide and improved its ranking, moving up to #8 from #15,  by being ahead of the market on quality while being about average at savings. Trader Joe’s, the second highest ranked retailer for quality, leads other quality-first retailers in savings perceptions.

Click here for more from the study.