NAICS 4451Industry group · 4-digitlocal market2 market records

Grocery and convenience retailers

SoftwareGrocery & Convenience Retail Technology

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in retailing a general line of food products. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 15,837
Under 10 employeesA: 59%

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

1–45,64336%

5–93,72624%

10–191,96912%

20–491,4029%

50–991,57710%

100–1991,2508%

200–4992542%

500+160%

Of 15,837 Canadian establishments with employees, 59% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario5,62736%

Quebec4,32527%

British Columbia1,73111%

Alberta1,63310%

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.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Retail Trade, US · opened 2020

88%

1 year

72.3%

3 years

59.8%

5 years

44.2%

10 years

opened 2015

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.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

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.

local competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 445 Food and beverage retailers

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.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 445110

Independent Grocery OperationOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

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.

NAICS 4451105 vendors named15 sourced figuresOpen →

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.

Vertical softwareScreened

Grocery & Convenience Retail TechnologyOne thing must be true

binding constraint: willingness to pay

Incumbent Instacart (Carrot) and Toshiba Global Commerce

Grocery runs 1–3% net margin, the thinnest buyer in this research, and the technology budget is dominated by checkout hardware refresh cycles the vendor already controls. The e-commerce layer is being consolidated by a marketplace that owns the demand side, which is a weaker position for a software vendor than it appears. Sourced update: the two halves of this market are moving in opposite directions — Instacart grew 11% to $3.74B while NCR Voyix's Retail segment fell 6% to $1.842B. An entrant selling store systems is selling into the shrinking half; the growing half is a marketplace with a two-sided network an entrant cannot rebuild.

NAICS 44513 vendors named3 sourced figuresOpen →

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 · 9

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
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
RelexPrivate	Grocery and convenience retailers4451	—	3/5
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

Cooks, butchers and bakers

Concentrated in this sectorA

Retail sales supervisors One industry 84.7%

Retail and wholesale trade managers One industry 80.1%

Cashiers and other sales support occupations One industry 80%

Retail salespersons and non-technical wholesale trade sales and account representatives Mostly one sector 69.7%

Pharmacists and dietitians Mostly one sector 61%

Medical technologists and technicians One industry 23.6%

Automotive service technicians Mostly one sector 18.7%

Cooks, butchers and bakers Mostly one sector 15.7%

Taxi, personal service and delivery service drivers Mostly one sector 12.2%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 11.2%

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

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 13.5%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 8.5%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 8.2%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 6.7%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 6.6%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 6%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 5.7%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 5.4%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 5.3%

Accounting, insurance and related business administrative occupations Across the economy 5%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

2 rows sit directly beneath 4451, and 5 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
44511	Supermarkets and other grocery retailers (except Convenience retailers)	8,304	Independent Grocery Operation
44513	Convenience retailers and vending machine operators	7,533	screened at 4451

Alongside it, under 445 Food and beverage retailers

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
4452	Specialty food retailers	7,893	Specialty Food Retail
4453	Beer, wine and liquor retailers	4,274	Private Liquor Retail