Store Formats, Market Structure, and Consumers’ Food Shopping Decisions

A growing literature in health and nutrition suggests that healthy foods are less available and more expensive at nontraditional store formats such as supercenters, convenience stores, and drug stores. We use Nielsen Homescan data to investigate the relationship between store format and the healthfulness of consumers’ grocery shopping. Accounting for a rich set of controls, as well as food retail market structure, we simultaneously estimate the healthfulness of consumers’ food purchases and the shares of food expenditure at traditional and nontraditional store formations. We find that healthier food choices are generally associated with higher food expenditure shares at supermarkets and supercenters and lower shares at drug stores and convenience stores. In addition, market concentration has a negative effect on shopping healthfulness.