U.S. Grocery: Heading into 2027

The trade-down is over as a share story, not as a consumer condition. Discount grocer share of U.S. grocer spend turned negative year over year in Q1 2026, the first decline in years, and it went negative in low, middle and high income households in the same quarter. Consumers are still gravitating toward value. What value means to them has moved again.

Michael Gunther, SVP of Research and Market Intelligence, tracks three grocery formats across fourteen quarters of Consumer Edge U.S. credit and debit card data, cut by household income and by age, from Q4 2022 through Q2 2026.

What’s Inside

• The discount grocer plateau: Share fell in every income tier in Q1 2026 after years of gains. Shoppers 18 to 34 turned positive again in Q2 2026 while every other age cohort stayed negative.
• Specialty grocer momentum: The only format to add share in every quarter, every income tier and every age cohort from Q4 2022 through Q2 2026. High income share moved from 15.9% to 17.2%.
• The generational handoff: Shoppers 35 to 54 overtook 18 to 34 as the specialty growth engine in Q3 2025, with the gap widening to roughly 0.4 points against 0.2 points by Q2 2026.
• Traditional supermarkets under pressure: A 4.1 point loss with shoppers 18 to 34 between Q4 2022 and Q2 2026, falling from 75.8% to 71.7%, against roughly one point with shoppers 55 and over.
• How business leaders use this data: Banner-level, weekly reads for market share tracking, competitive benchmarking, demand and category planning, and site planning.