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- What is the size of the UK grocery market? - How many grocery stores are there in the UK? - How big is each sector?
What is the size of the UK grocery market?
- The grocery market was worth £146.3bn for the calendar year 2009, an increase of 4.8% on 2008
- Food and grocery expenditure accounts for 52p in every £1 of retail spending
- 21p in every £1 spent in food & grocery is spent in convenience stores
UK Grocery Market Performance

Grocery market performance. Source: IGD Research 2009
How many grocery stores are there in the UK?
There are 92,796 grocery stores in the UK. These are split into four sectors, which are defined as follows:
- Convenience stores:
stores with sales area of less than 3,000 sq ft, open for long hours and selling products from at least 8 different grocery categories, ((e.g SPAR, Co-operative Group, Londis).
- Traditional retail:
sales area of less than 3,000 sq ft such as newsagents, grocers, off-licences, & some forecourts
- Hypermarket, supermarkets & superstores:
Supermarkets have a sales area of 3,000-25,000 sq ft Superstores have sales area above 25,000 sq ft Hypermarkets are over 60,000 sq ft. All sell a broad range of mainly grocery items, Non-food is also sold (eg Tesco, Asda)
- Online channel:
Sales via the internet
How big is each sector?
The chart below shows how many stores are within each sector and how much each sector is worth.
UK Grocery Retailing - Store Numbers & Sector Value

UK store numbers chart, Source: IGD Research, 2009
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