Fruit and vegetable markets — NAICS 44523 industry report

01

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

1–416830%

5–911220%

10–1911120%

20–498315%

50–99478%

100–199346%

200–49910%

500+0—

Of 556 Canadian establishments with employees, 50% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario19435%

Quebec15428%

British Columbia13725%

Alberta234%

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.

02

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.

03

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.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 4452 Specialty food retailers covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 4452

Specialty Food RetailStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

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.

NAICS 44524 vendors named12 sourced figuresOpen →

04

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.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Grocery point of sale, scale and perishables management, loyalty.

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.

05

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.

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 →

06

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 44523. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
445230	Fruit and vegetable markets	556	screened at 4452

Alongside it, under 4452 Specialty food retailers

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
44524	Meat markets	1,522	screened at 4452
44525	Fish and seafood markets	302	screened at 4452
44529	Other specialty food retailers	5,513	screened at 4452