Food and beverage retailers
This subsector comprises establishments primarily engaged in retailing a general or specialized line of food or beverage products. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A
- Establishments · CanadaA
- 28,004
- Under 10 employeesA
- 61%
- Establishments · USA
- 159,039
- Employment · USA
- 3,328,388
- Payroll · USA
- $92.4B
Size and shape
How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.
Canadian establishments by number of employeesA
Of 28,004 Canadian establishments with employees, 61% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.
Where they areA
Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
How businesses here compete
The structural profile of subsector 445, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.
Low margin and high turn, with perishable inventory. The independent's position is a location or a category the chains serve badly.
- Who sets the price
- Supplier cost and the nearest competitor.
- The software it runs on
- Grocery point of sale, scale and perishables management, loyalty.
Market screens and studies
Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.
Net margins of one to two percent leave no room for a purchasing disadvantage, and an independent buys through a wholesaler at prices the national chains beat directly with the manufacturer. The defensible versions are geographic — a town the chains will not enter — or specialised ethnic and natural grocery, both of which are real and neither of which scales. The grocery technology stack is screened separately at 4451.
A butcher, cheesemonger, bakery or ethnic grocer is small-format and genuinely reachable — and that is most of what is attractive about it. The cut is the shape of the money: a lease, a fit-out, refrigeration and opening inventory are all spent before the first sale, the inventory spoils, and the recovery comes back one basket at a time from a catchment measured in minutes of walking or driving. Gross margin on food retail does not stretch far enough to service that fit-out quickly, and the landlord — not the operator — captures the value of a location that works, at renewal. This is the same capital-shape cut applied across the retail records in this research, and nothing about specialty food exempts it.
In most provinces the licence is the asset and it is capped, transferable and expensive — which makes entry an acquisition priced on the licence rather than the store. Wholesale price is set by a provincial board that is also, in several provinces, the competing retailer. Margin is therefore administered rather than earned, and the operator's only levers are location, hours and selection.
Software serving this industry
The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.
And what every business buys · 25 generic categories
Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.
Companies in this industry · 12
Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.
| Company | Filed under | Revenue | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| InstacartPrivate | Grocery and convenience retailers4451 | $3.7B | 1/5 |
| Bulk Barn, COBS Bread, Purdys Chocolatier and Laura SecordPrivate | Specialty food retailers4452 | — | 1/1 |
| Empire Company and Metro Inc.Private | Supermarkets and other grocery retailers (except Convenience retailers)445110 | — | 1/4 |
| LoblawsTSX:L | Supermarkets and other grocery retailers (except Convenience retailers)445110 | — | 2/4 |
| NCR VoyixPrivate | Grocery and convenience retailers4451 | — | 2/5 |
| Real Canadian Superstore, Sobeys, Co-op, Costco and Safeway CanadaPrivate | Beer, wine and liquor retailers4453 | — | 1/2 |
| RelexPrivate | Grocery and convenience retailers4451 | — | 3/5 |
| SNDL Inc.Private | Beer, wine and liquor retailers4453 | — | 2/2 |
| SpartanNashDelisted | Supermarkets and other grocery retailers (except Convenience retailers)445110 | — | 3/4 |
| Symphony RetailAIPrivate | Grocery and convenience retailers4451 | — | 4/5 |
| Toshiba Global CommercePrivate | Grocery and convenience retailers4451 | — | 5/5 |
| Walmart Canada, Costco Wholesale Canada and Federated Co-operativesPrivate | Supermarkets and other grocery retailers (except Convenience retailers)445110 | — | 4/4 |
Who works here
The occupations employed in Retail trade, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.
Tagged to this industry
Concentrated in this sectorA
These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.
And the jobs every business has
Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.
Inside this industry
3 rows sit directly beneath 445, and 20 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4451 | Grocery and convenience retailers | 15,837 | Grocery & Convenience Retail TechnologyIndependent Grocery Operation |
| 4452 | Specialty food retailers | 7,893 | Specialty Food Retail |
| 4453 | Beer, wine and liquor retailers | 4,274 | Private Liquor Retail |