Grocery Store and Supermarket Revenue Benchmark

Average Grocery Store Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every grocery store and supermarket with paid employees, from a single independent store to the branches of national chains, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of stores gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$12,255,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $808.8 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 65,996 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $12,255,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Supermarkets and Other Grocery Retailers (except Convenience Retailers), NAICS 445110. The category covers general-line grocery stores and supermarkets with paid employees. Convenience stores, warehouse clubs and supercenters, and specialty food retailers such as butchers and bakeries are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 4451: 445131 Convenience Retailers; 445132 Vending Machine Operators. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Varies by cohort

Grocery and Convenience Retailers, NAICS 4451, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 48.2 to 61.1 percent. This benchmark covers Grocery and Convenience Retailers, NAICS 4451, as a whole, and this category accounts for 65,996 of the 101,624 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Supermarkets and Other Grocery Retailers (except Convenience Retailers), United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 10.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because revenue here is the value of the groceries sold and the cost of stocking the shelves outweighs staffing many times over.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and the census does not publish cost of goods for this table, so nothing on this page shows what a store keeps after paying its suppliers.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Supermarkets and Other Grocery Retailers (except Convenience Retailers), United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 43.5 people, and the industry counted 1.6 employer establishments per firm. That is a large staff for a retail store, because a full-line grocer runs several departments at once, from checkout and stocking to deli, bakery and meat counters, often across long opening hours. The establishments per firm figure reflects how much of this category consists of multi-store chains rather than single independent stores.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Grocery Store and Supermarket: what a chain-heavy average does not tell an independent operator.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Is the store part of a chain or an independent? The average blends warehouse-fed supermarket branches with single independent stores that buy through a wholesaler. Purchasing terms, private label access and advertising support differ sharply between the two, and the revenue figure on this page says nothing about which model a given store follows.
• What does the store keep from a dollar of sales? Grocery retailing runs on thin trading margins that the census does not measure, so a large revenue figure can sit beside a modest surplus. Cost of goods, shrink and markdowns decide the outcome, and none of them appear in a receipts table.
• Which departments carry the store? Fresh departments such as produce, meat and bakery bring shoppers in and set the reputation of a store, but they also carry the heaviest spoilage. A store that is strong in center aisles and weak in fresh can report the same receipts as its mirror image.
• Who competes for the same basket? Supercenters, warehouse clubs, discount grocers, convenience stores and online delivery services each take part of the weekly shop, and the census counts them in separate categories. A benchmark for grocery stores alone leaves those competitors out of view.
• Where does the labor go during the week? Deliveries, weekend peaks and early morning restocking shape a grocery schedule, and overtime or understaffing at those points shows up in shrink and in lost sales rather than in the payroll line. Scheduling quality is invisible in an annual average.
• Does the lease or the building belong to the operator? Occupancy cost for a large sales floor, refrigeration and parking is a fixed commitment that receipts do not reveal. Two stores with identical sales can differ mainly in the rent they pay for the space that produced them.