Specialty Food Stores NAICS 4452

Jun 13, 2025 - Dollar Stores Draw High-Income Shoppers

• Higher earners – those most able to afford to shop at specialty food stores – are visiting dollar stores in search of discounts amid a contracting economy, The Wall Street Journal reports. Dollar Tree and Dollar General reported increased sales this spring due to an influx of middle- and upper-income customers, according to WSJ. Dollar Tree’s CEO told analysts that the company added 2.6 million new customers in its fiscal first quarter, with most coming from households with annual incomes above $100,000. Also, the CEO of Dollar General reported seeing increased “trade-in” activity from middle- and higher-income customers, while its core lower-income customer remains financially constrained. Years of high food price inflation have caused consumers to trade down by purchasing cheaper private label goods and shopping at discount grocery chains like Aldi and Walmart and dollar stores.
• US sales of certified organic products accelerated in 2024 with an annual growth rate of 5.2%, more than double that of the overall marketplace, which grew at 2.5% over the same period, according to the 2025 Organic Market Report released by the Organic Trade Association. Dollar sales hit a new high of $71.6 billion, with organic food sales totaling $65.4 billion and sales of organic nonfood products at $6.2 billion. As food price inflation moderated last year, the gap between conventional and organic prices across categories including grocery and dairy narrowed, making shoppers more likely to buy organic, according to OTA. Organic produce held on to the top spot, accounting for 30.1% of total organic sales with a growth rate of 5.2% for the year. Organic berry sales rose 10.3%, while sales of organic bananas climbed 15.5%.

• A new mobile app is influencing consumers’ purchasing habits, The Wall Street Journal reports. The app, called Yuka, launched in France in 2017 and arrived in the US in 2020. It enables users to scan food product bar codes and scores them on a scale of one to 100 based on nutritional quality, additives, and whether the item is organic. Yuka and other food-scanning apps are changing what products grocers sell and consumers buy, and prompting some manufacturers to reformulate products to boost scores. According to Yuka’s CEO, nearly one-third of its 68 million users are in the US and an average of 25,000 new US users have joined daily since the start of the year, WSJ reports. Adoption of these apps is being fueled by the same skepticism toward food ingredients, companies, and regulators shared by HHS Secretary RFK Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, per WSJ.
• Employment by specialty food retailers shrank 1.1% in March compared to a year ago, while average industry wages rose 5.9% over the same period to $19.30 per hour, unchanged from their high in February, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Producer prices for specialty food retailers fell 8.4% from January to April, tracking a decline in retail grocery prices in April, according to BLS data. The 0.2% dip in April grocery prices vs. March was the first in five years and was led by a 12.7% decrease in the price of eggs. Also, the price of fruits and vegetables (a key category for many specialty food stores) and other food at home fell 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively. Still, consumers remain concerned about food price inflation, with the impact of tariffs largely yet to be felt.