Food Purchase Diversity Across U.S. Markets

Growth in the number of food products and brands carried by grocery stores implies a preference for diversity. We examine the factors that affect the variety of food purchases across U.S. markets. Three measures of variety, based on market-level sales of both grocery categories and RTE cereal brands, are regressed on various population and market characteristics. We find that markets with a high proportion of low-income individuals exhibit less variety both in terms of grocery categories and breakfast cereal brands. We also find that racial diversity and average store size are important factors in explaining diversity of grocery purchases across markets, but are less important in explaining the variety of cereal brand purchases. [EconLit citations: D120, L660.] © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.