Grocery Shopping Patterns (7.6)

Clients were asked where they do most of their grocery shopping. Results are shown in Table 7.6.1.

Table 7.6.1
GROCERY SHOPPING PATTERNS

Where do you do most of your grocery shopping?	Adult Clients Who Pick Up Food at a Pantry	Adult Clients at a Kitchen	Adult Clients at a Shelter	Adult Clients at All Program Sites
Supermarkets or grocery stores	73.4%	69.1%	61.3%	71.8%
Discount stores (e.g., Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart)	17.7%	13.6%	12.7%	16.7%
Warehouse clubs (e.g., Price Club, Costco, Pace, Sam’s Club, BJ’s)	0.9%	1.1%	0.4%	0.9%
Convenience stores (e.g., 7-11, Quickshop, Wawa)	0.9%	3.4%	5.4%	1.6%
Ethnic food stores (e.g., bodegas, Asian food markets, or Caribbean markets)	1.0%	1.0%	0.7%	1.0%
Farmer’s market	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
Other (including “dollar” stores)	3.9%	3.2%	5.4%	3.9%
Don’t know because someone else in family shops	0.3%	0.7%	2.2%	0.5%
Don’t buy groceries, free food only	1.6%	7.5%	12.1%	3.3%
TOTAL	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
SAMPLE SIZE (N)	37,986	10,667	4,225	52,878

Source:
This table was constructed based on usable responses to Question 40 of the client survey .

Notes:
The percentages presented in this table are based only on usable responses, excluding missing, don't know, and refusal responses. All usable responses were weighted as described in Chapter 3 and in the Technical Appendix volume to represent all emergency food clients of the A2H National Network. The sample sizes (N) also include missing data.

Missing, don’t know, and refusal responses combined are 4.4% for pantry clients, 4.5% for kitchen clients, 4.5% for shelter clients, and 4.5% for all clients.

Among all clients, 72.1% shop mostly at supermarkets or grocery stores. Information about other places where some of the clients do most their grocery shopping follows:

1.6% of the clients use convenience stores for most of their grocery shopping.
16.7% of the clients shop mostly at discount stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, or K-Mart.
3.3% of the clients do not buy groceries. They rely only on free food.