Tough Crowd: Consumers Reports Surveys Grocers

In a survery of over 32,000 respondents about supermarkets that covered nearly 49,000 store visits, Consumer Reports ranked Wegmans and Trader Joe’s the highest.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. grocery retailer, came in near dead last.

In spite of having the largest number of responses in the survey, the Bentonville Behemoth got low scores for service and perishables.

Other top scorers were Publix Super Markets Inc., Raley’s, Ruddick Corp’s Harris Teeter, Fareway, Costco Wholesale Corp, Whole Foods Market, Market Basket, WinCo Foods, and Stater Bros. In a sign of how competition from Wal-Mart forced the grocery sector to try harder, overall consumer satisfaction improved from the magazine’s last supermarket review four years ago: service, checkout speed , the quality of store brands, baked goods, and produce all scored above the survey done in 2005.

In an odd mirror image, stores with the best numbers for cleanliness, meat and produce got lowest marks for prices. Consumers seem to think they can have it all, since Trader Joe’s, Costco, Market Basket, WinCo, Aldi Inc., and Supervalu Inc.’s Save-A-Lot were rated well for price, but “so-so” for produce and service. Wegmans and Whole Foods scored highest for meats and perishables, while Wegmans, Trader Joe’s and Raley’s performed well in the service category.

Discounter Target Corp. had better scores than its rival, Wal-Mart, but has only 200 stores with full grocery sections.

The #1 complaint? Lack of open checkout lanes, a chronic problem for anyone who has shopped at Wal-Mart, but an issue with many grocery retailers. too. One third of those surveyed claimed they had switched stores in the search for better prices.

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