A Haunting Look at Grocery Stores

What does the future hold for the grocery business? A new book explores some possibilities. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

Based loosely on “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens’ story of ghosts and redemption, grocery expert Scott Moses has released a new book that explores the transformation in America from “Supermarkets Past” – including the meteoric rise over the past 20 years of national/discount grocers Walmart, Target, Costco, Amazon, Aldi and Dollar General – to “Supermarkets Present.” The 222-page book also reviews the importance of scale, grocery M&A and regulatory attempts to curtail it, as well as the potential consequences of these dynamics in alternative versions of “Supermarkets Future.”

PHOTO: Solomon Partners

Moses, Head of Grocery, Pharmacy & Restaurants at financial advisory firm Solomon Partners, titled his book, “A ‘Grocery’ Christmas Carol: The Ghost of Supermarkets Future.”

“Supermarket grocers have served as pillars of thousands of American communities for generations, feeding our families and providing great jobs,” Moses said. “During Covid-19, we all saw firsthand how essential our local supermarket grocers are to our lives; but they are under existential threat from national/discount grocers. I wrote this book to provide a dashboard of grocery facts, call attention to the changes our industry has experienced and highlight the risks of a regulatory environment that prevents supermarket grocers from building the scale they need to remain competitive in the long run and avoid the fate of department stores, which we all have witnessed as well.”

The book has drawn praise from several industry executives, including:

• Jim Donald, a veteran of Albertsons and Starbucks, who said, “While industry geeks like me will really enjoy this read, so too will anyone else who shops for groceries.”

and

• Heritage Grocers CEO Suzy Monford, who said, “This should become the textbook of our time, and should be required readers for grocers, CPG companies and economics majors.”