The Surprising Grocery Store 22% Of Shoppers Refuse To Go In
Remember in "Zombieland" when Woody Harrelson stops by a grocery store to pick up a box of Twinkies in the middle of the apocalypse (via Epicurious)? If there were ever a movie scene proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that supermarkets and their infinite offerings are bright beacons in a dark world, that's it. According to The Food Industry Association, as of 2019, in addition to Twinkies, the average grocery store offers you over 28,000 different items. 28,000 is a lot of products to stare at as you wander your supermarket's aisles looking for your weekly needs (apocalyptic or not) — a trip that you likely take, as Statista lists, 1.6 times per week.
But if a trip to your grocer of choice can inspire myriads of Instagram-worthy photos, (we've got our eyes on you all you, Aldi-enthusiasts!), it's also true that your weekly pilgrimage can inspire dread. Example? Meg Ryan was lucky in "You Got Mail" when she reached the front of a cash-only line with a credit card. Not all of us have Tom Hanks at our disposal to sweet talk cashiers! Mashed asked 637 US-based respondents to tell us the one supermarket that they refuse to go into. One store stood out as particularly ... erm, inglorious?
Most of Mashed's survey respondents picked this store as the one they won't go into
Even Oprah's got a thing for Costco, which might explain why a mere 8.32% of all of Mashed's survey respondents won't go in that particular grocery chain. Trader Joe's garnered the second-least amount of nay-sayers. In total, 9.89% of survey respondents reported not wanting to step foot in that supermarket. And while 10.68% of all respondents refuse to shop at Kroger, 13.34% of all respondents won't go into Whole Foods, and 15.74% don't want to see the insides of Aldi, two grocery chains inspired noticeably more dread than the rest.
Are you ready for this? A total of 19.78 percent of all Mashed's survey takers refuse to open Sam's Club's doors. A staggering 22.29% percent, on the other hand, will not step foot into Meijer. The stats are more impressive when you take into account the fact that Meijer is the only supermarket on the list that is strictly regional: the supermarket purports to only operate in six states across the midwest (via Meijer). Ouch!