The Grocery Store

How these numbers were built: the store this model starts from (a neighborhood or specialty market of about $1.4 million a year) and its owner-earnings band, revenue range, sale prices, and resale multiples come from BizBuySell’s 2021-2025 grocery store benchmarks; the average basket ($34) and inventory turns from the 2025 and 2026 FMS/NGA Independent Grocers Financial Studies, with baskets a day worked out from the two; cost of goods, wages, rent, utilities, supplies, and repairs for owner-run grocers from IRS sole-proprietor data (via ProjectionHub); what larger supermarkets keep from the FMS/NGA studies (about 2% net before taxes, 3.5% EBITDA, labor 16.3% of sales) and FMI chain data (about 1-2% net); shrink from the NRF National Retail Security Survey; survival rates from BLS Business Employment Dynamics; SBA loan volume and charge-offs from the SBA 7(a) loan data for supermarkets and grocery stores; and the cost to open from the opening kit, priced item by item from fixture, refrigeration, scale, and POS dealers and store cost guides, with the opening inventory sized to the inventory turns independents report. Where credible sources disagree, we show the conservative range. These are starting assumptions; the moment you enter a real location’s baskets, basket size, and rent, your numbers should replace ours. Figures are current as of 2025-2026.

Owner earnings (SDE), revenue range, and resale multiples come from BizBuySell’s 2021-2025 grocery store benchmarks (mostly neighborhood and specialty markets); cost of goods, wages, rent, and gross margin for owner-run stores from IRS sole-proprietor data via ProjectionHub; labor, average basket, net profit, EBITDA, shrink, and inventory turns for independent supermarkets from the 2025 and 2026 FMS/NGA studies; chain net margins from FMI; shrink context from the NRF National Retail Security Survey. The baskets-per-day band is worked out from BizBuySell revenue and the NGA basket, and revenue per square foot is estimated from grocery operating norms.