Specialty Food Stores Industry Profile

Companies in this industry sell products such as meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, baked goods, candy, and gourmet foods from physical retail locations, often specializing in a single product category. No major companies dominate the industry.

Sales of specialty foods have been increasing worldwide as demand for ethnic foods has continued to grow. In part, the increase comes from immigrant consumers seeking out foods from their own cultures. In the US, Hispanic consumers command about $1.4 trillion in buying power, a figure that's expected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2021, according to Nielsen. Moreover, Hispanics spend more than other groups on groceries, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth. Asian-American buying power in the US is about $986 billion and is expected to increase to $1.3 trillion by 2022. As consumers worldwide see higher wages and travel increases, interest in other ethnic cuisines such as Filipino, Pakistani, and Peruvian is expected to rise.

The US specialty food store industry includes about 22,300 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $22 billion. Retail specialty food sales grew nearly 10% from 2016 to 2018 (compared with 3% for all food sales), driven by product innovations and wider availability of specialty foods through mass-market outlets, according to the 2019-2020 State of the Specialty Food Industry report from the Specialty Food Association, Mintel and SPINS/IRI, which tracks US sales of specialty foods through supermarkets, natural food ...