The Most Popular Grocery Store Chain in Every State

Publix is the largest employee-owned company, not only in the U.S. but in the world. Known for its clean stores, intuitive layout, and exceedingly friendly employees, this beloved chain grocer has 1,294 locations in seven Southeastern states, including 82 in Alabama. Publix generated $44.9 billion in sales in 2020.

The original “one-stop shop,” Fred Meyer is a hypermarket that provides not only groceries, but hardware, garden supplies, clothing, and home decor. The company became a Kroger subsidiary in 1998 and its locations in Arizona and Utah were rebranded as other markets. Despite this, Fred Meyer still has 141 locations in four Northwestern states, with 13 in Alaska.

A subsidiary of Albertson’s since 2015, Safeway has 906 stores around the country. The chain operates mostly in the Western U.S. – with over 100 locations each in Washington, California, Colorado and Arizona – but with a pocket of East Coast stores clustered around the Baltimore-Washington metro area.

Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the county, generating about $132 billion in revenue in 2020, with $2.59 billion in profit. The Kroger Company owns 22 chains, including the grocers Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Ralphs, and Smith’s. In addition to grocery stores, Kroger also owns The Little Clinic (in-store clinics) and Fred Meyer Jewelers.

This quirky, nautical-themed grocery store has a cult-like following and an annual revenue of over $13 billion. There are 530 Trader Joe’s nationwide, 183 of them in California. With bright hand-written signs, deeply discounted wine, and a limited, curated selection of 80% private label goods, Trader Joe’s makes shopping feel more like a treasure hunt than a chore. In 1979, the company was bought by Theo Albrecht, a German entrepreneur and co-founder of the Aldi chain. Chain founder Joe Coulombe stayed on board until he retired in 1988. He died in 2020 at the age of 89.

Started by Lloyd King in 1947, King Soopers is a Rocky Mountain grocery chain with over 100 stores in Colorado, as well as a single store in Wyoming. The chain was bought by Kroger in 1983. On January 24, 2022, over 8,000 Denver-area King Soopers workers ended a 10-day strike when they ratified a new contract granting higher wages, better health care, and increased safety protocols.

This northeastern supermarket chain got its start in Massachusetts in 1914, spreading throughout southern New England by 1990. In 1995 Stop & Shop was bought by the Dutch supermarket company Ahold, who merged with the Belgian Delhaize company in 2016. Ahold Delhaize also owns Hannaford, Food Lion, and Giant, making it one of the largest grocery chains in the U.S. by revenue.

Hailing from South Philadelphia, the Acme Markets chain serves the Mid-Atlantic, with 162 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Connecticut. Acme has been a subsidiary of Albertsons since 1999, and was the biggest grocery store in the Delaware Valley for decades, until it was surpassed by ShopRite in 2011 .

It’s no surprise that Publix is a Florida favorite. There are currently 832 Publix stores in the state. The company was founded in Winter Haven, Florida, by George Jenkins, who set out to treat both employees and customers like family, and he seems to have succeeded. Employees receive year-end bonuses and free company stock annually in a retirement fund.

With 192 locations, there are more Publix stores in Georgia than any other chain grocer in the state. Publix also has multiple manufacturing facilities in Georgia, including a bakery plant and a dairy plant that bottles milk and produces the chain’s private label yogurt, cottage cheese, and ice cream.

Safeway is known for its $5 Friday deals, discounted meat, and gas rewards. The chain got its start in Idaho, and was one of the first supermarkets to build parking lots next to their stores, as well as an early adopter of both pricing produce by the pound, and putting sell-by dates on perishable items. There are currently 23 Safeway locations in Hawaii.

Getting its start in downtown Boise, Albertsons grew to be an Idaho staple after WWII and eventually had over 600 locations in the West. The chain was started by Joe Albertson, a former Safeway cashier who’d risen through the ranks to manage over a dozen stores. Albertsons has since acquired numerous grocery chains and become the second largest grocery store by revenue in the U.S.

Founded in Chicago, Jewel-Osco got its start as a door to door coffee delivery service. The chain has a stronghold in the Chicago metropolitan area, with 188 locations in Illinois as well as parts of Iowa and Indiana. Jewel-Osco was taken over by American Stores in 1984, which was subsequently acquired by Albertsons in 1999.

There are 152 Kroger stores in Indiana. Kroger is known for its extensive private label selection, which includes the popular – and affordable – natural and organic brand Simple Truth. Kroger’s customer loyalty program has made headlines as one of the top grocery rewards programs in the country.

Named for its co-founders, Charles Hyde and David Vredenburg, Hy-Vee is a Midwestern chain that started as a general store in the small town of Beaconsfield, Iowa. It is currently an employee-owned company as well as Iowa’s largest private employer, with 156 locations in the state.

There are currently 275 Hy-Vee stores in eight midwestern states, with future sites slated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Indiana. Hy-Vee brings in an annual revenue of over $11 billion and employs over 91,000 people. There are 11 locations in Kansas, mostly in the Kansas City metro area.

About two-thirds of Kroger workers are unionized, including many in Kentucky, who are represented by United Food and Commercial Workers. In the last three years, UFCW Local branches 227 and 75 have negotiated higher wages and increased benefits for employees in Kentucky and surrounding states.

Rouses is a family-owned supermarket chain operating in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The company has grown significantly since 2007, acquiring and rebranding 17 Sav-A-Center, six Belle Food, and nine LeBlanc’s Food stores. The chain employs about 7,000 people and sees an annual revenue of $500 million.

Founded in Portland, Maine, by brothers Arthur, Howard, and Edward Hannaford, the Hannaford Brothers Company serves northern New England, with 183 stores and 26,000 employees. In 2000, the Belgian supermarket company Delhaize bought Hannaford, later merging with the Dutch company Ahold to become Ahold Delhaize.

With 60 locations around the state, Safeway is one of the biggest grocery chains in Maryland. In 2005, Safeway began a $100 million lifestyle image campaign called “Ingredients for Life,” which involved redesigning stores, softening lighting, and adding expanded organic sections. Sushi and olive bars, as well as Starbucks kiosks, were installed at many locations.

There are 128 Stop & Shop markets in Massachusetts – more than double the number of any other grocer in the state. While Stop & Shop makes about $15 billion in revenue, its parent company Ahold Delhaize brings in about $44 billion across its U.S. holdings, which include nearly 2,000 grocery stores under multiple brands.

Getting its start in Michigan during the Great Depression, the Meijer chain is credited as one of the first supercenters. In 1962, Meijer Inc. began building hypermarkets around the Midwest, with groceries on one side and department stores on the other. There are currently 264 Meijer markets, many of which house other chain operations such as Starbucks and Subway, as well as barber shops and nail salons.

Hy-Vee has over 40 locations in Minnesota. In the last decade, the chain has broadened its store offerings to include not only groceries, but clothing boutiques, full-service restaurants, wine and liquor retailers, diverse food courts, and coffee kiosks. The introduction of the Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh model in 2018 added gas, sushi, wood-fired pizza, and coffee drive-throughs.

There may be more Piggly Wigglys than Krogers in Mississippi, but Kroger remains the most popular grocer in the state. Mississippi consistently ranks as one of the most food-insecure in the country, and Kroger has given over $1.9 million to organizations dedicated to ending hunger there, as part of its Zero Hunger Zero Waste initiative.

In 2021, Hy-Vee was voted No. 2 in USA Today’s Readers’ Choice Awards for Best Supermarkets in America. Customers love the Fuel Saver + Perks Program, the Chinese food, and the house-made bratwurst. In 2017, the chain began operating Wahlburgers franchises, which can be found at multiple of Missouri’s 130 Hy-Vee locations.

There are currently 29 Albertsons stores in Montana – more than any other grocer in the state. Albertsons operates over 2,200 supermarkets across the country, which pulled in $62 billion in revenues in 2020. Albertsons has been owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm, since 2006.

Hy-Vee has 30 locations in Nebraska, including multiple Dollar Fresh shops, which offer deeply discounted items (think dollar store) along with fresh produce and meats, prepared meals, private label deals, and discounted clothing. Hy-Vee’s Dollar Fresh model is designed to meet the needs of small, rural communities.

Founded by Lorenzo Smith in Brigham City, Utah, Smith’s Food and Drug has grown to be a prominent chain in the West. There are currently 143 locations, with 43 in Nevada. In 1997, Smith’s was bought by Fred Meyer, which was in turn subsequently acquired by Kroger. Although many Smith’s stores retained their brand, they now also carry Kroger products.

Market Basket is a family-owned grocery chain started by Greek immigrants Athanasios and Efrosini Demoulas in Lowell, Massachusetts. There are now 90 Market Baskets in four New England states, including 33 in New Hampshire, bringing in over $5 billion in annual sales. Decades of family in-fighting and lawsuits do not seem to have stunted the market’s growth.

There are currently 161 Acme Markets, with 70 in New Jersey, which is down from 76 in 2019. Despite multiple recent store closings in New York and New Jersey, Acme has recently expanded its footprint by purchasing dozens of markets owned by its competitor A&P after the company declared bankruptcy in 2015.

There are currently 390 Albertsons stores in the U.S., with six locations in New Mexico. Albertsons also operates hundreds of other stores under banners including Jewel-Osco, Acme Markets, Safeway, Shaw’s, and Vons. When the company acquired Safeway, it also acquired Safeway’s private label brand, O Organics, which is now one of the largest brands of certified organic products in the country.

By sourcing direct from producers and utilizing private labeling, Trader Joe’s cuts out the middlemen and is able to offer competitive pricing on premium, specialty, and organic goods. They offer a limited selection of high-selling products (about 4,000 SKUs per store rather than the 30,000 options at typical supermarkets) which helps the chain generate more revenue per square foot than any other grocer.

Food Lion, which started in North Carolina as Food Town, serves 10 states in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. The company has 1,103 stores – over 50 of them in North Carolina – and employs around 88,000 people. Delhaize bought Food Town in 1974, renaming it Food Lion to distinguish the brand from other stores named Food Town. It has been a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize since a merger in 2016.

A small chain that got its start in Minnesota, Hornbacher’s has eight locations; seven of which are in North Dakota. The chain was bought by SuperValu Inc. in 1975, which subsequently sold it to St. Cloud based supermarket company Coborn’s Inc. in 2018.

Barney Kroger opened his first grocery store in Cincinnati in 1883, and by 1902 he had forty locations, and Kroger had become the first grocery store to have its own in-house bakery. By 1929, the company had grown to 5,579 stores. There are currently 217 Kroger supermarkets in Ohio.

This German family-owned discount grocery chain has over 11,000 locations worldwide, including around 2,000 stores in the United States. Spanning 36 states, Aldi has a loyal customer base and has been called the best grocery store in America. The no-frills store stocks bulk staples, discounted private label groceries, and some of the cheapest organic products available.

There are currently 56 Fred Meyer locations in Oregon, with 15 in Portland, where the business was started in 1922 by entrepreneur Fred G. Meyer. Meyer has been credited with opening the first self-service drug store in the nation (prior to its opening, people had to get their toiletries and medicines from a pharmacist’s counter), as well as Portland’s first rooftop parking lot, at his Hollywood District grocery location.

There are over 130 Aldi locations in Pennsylvania. The Aldi business is split into two groups, with Aldi Nord running Trader Joe’s in the U.S. and Aldi Süd running Aldi brand markets in the U.S., which made an estimated $15 billion in 2020. Like Trader Joe’s, Aldi stocks a limited selection – around 1,400 – of top-selling items in a storefront that is a quarter the size of an average regular supermarket.

There are 27 Stop & Shop locations in Rhode Island. The chain was partnered with the Giant-Landover supermarket chain from 2004 to 2011, and the two grocers re-branded to a shared logo, which is still used in most Shop & Stop stores.

With 64 locations in South Carolina, Publix is not the largest grocer in the state (there are over 100 Food Lions) but it is the most popular. Publix has been named one of the 100 best companies to work for by Fortune, as well as one of the best workplaces for women and millennials.

From day one, Hy-Vee’s founders were setting the stage for the company’s employee ownership model. Store managers received shared profits as early as 1933, and in 1936 employee bonuses were introduced. The company was finally incorporated in 1938, with plans for high levels of autonomy for store managers.

Kroger runs 35 manufacturing facilities, including two in Tennessee: Delight Products and Heritage Farms Dairy. There are also three distribution facilities in the state and 121 Kroger stores, all of which employee over 18,000 people in the state.

In 2004, Kroger introduced a hypermarket called Kroger Marketplace. There are 218 Kroger stores in Texas, including around eight Kroger Marketplaces, which feature jewelry stores, banks, Starbucks, Donatos Pizza, and toy and home goods sections in addition to supermarkets.

There are currently 55 Smith’s stores in Utah – more than in any other state – including multiple Smith’s Marketplace hypermarkets, which Kroger introduced in 2004. In 2021, Smith’s stores brought in $4 billion in revenue, and employed 22,000 people.

Hannaford has received recognition for its efforts in environmental sustainability, food waste diversion, and hunger relief. The stores are known for their inviting atmosphere, quality produce and the availability of local products from Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York.

Harris Teeter operates in the southern Atlantic region, with 261 stores in seven states. Before the popular chain was bought by Kroger in 2013, it saw an annual revenue of $4.5 billion. Customers love the high quality private label products (especially the ice cream), the huge prepared foods section, and the free cookies available at the bakery counter.

Safeway has 179 stores in Washington. The chain has numerous private labels including O Organics, Open Nature (all-natural products), Lucerne Dairy Farms, Signature Care (wellness items), and Primo Taglio (deli meats and cheeses). Upon Albertsons’ acquisition of Safeway, Albertsons grocery stores began carrying many of these private labels.

Kroger’s Zero Hunger Zero Waste Foundation has funneled tens of millions of pounds of excess food that could no longer be sold from Kroger retail stores, distribution plants, and manufacturing facilities to Feeding America partners across the country, including in West Virginia, one of the most food insecure states in the country. There are currently 40 Kroger locations in the state.

Meijer’s stores are known for their exceedingly fresh produce, and for being open 24 hours a day, 364 days a year (a practice which has been suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic). In addition to stores in Michigan and Wisconsin, Meijer serves Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky, which brought in a total revenue of $19.59 billion in 2020.

Nine locations may not sound like much, but in a state with around 50 grocery stores total, Albertsons provides a crucial service. In addition to supermarkets, around the country Albertsons runs over 400 fuel stations, 1,700 in-store pharmacies, 20 food processing plants, and 23 distribution centers.