How Center Store earns a place in the grocery basket.
Food-based Center Store (packaged, shelf-stable, and frozen grocery products, excluding fresh perimeter departments) remains one of grocery’s largest opportunities, representing more than $685 billion in annual spending and more than half of the grocery wallet. But the topline obscures a more challenging reality for brands and retailers—households are spending more on Center Store while buying fewer units.
Since 2020, annual Center Store spend per household has increased 42%, while units purchased per household have declined 1.2%. Shoppers are making more frequent trips, but buying fewer products on each one, setting a higher bar for every item that ends up in the basket.
The question for brands and retailers is no longer simply how to capture Center Store spending. It is how to earn a clear, repeatable role in a more selective grocery basket.
Numerator’s new report, The Purposeful Pantry, combines observed purchase behavior with consumer survey data to examine where Center Store is gaining relevance, where routine is eroding, and how households make tradeoffs when budgets tighten.
More grocery spending doesn’t mean bigger Center Store baskets.
Center Store’s share of the grocery wallet has remained remarkably stable, but stability does not mean shopper behavior has stood still. Higher spending has not translated into fuller baskets. As households make more frequent, smaller trips, every product must answer a more immediate question: What role does this play in my household right now?
That pattern holds across households with different levels of financial flexibility. Affluent, Middle Class, and Struggling households are all spending more on Center Store while navigating smaller baskets, but the tradeoffs they make depend on the resources available to them, shaping which products, occasions, and value levers can remain part of their routines.
For some products, the answer is helping solve tonight’s meal. For others, it is creating flexibility for later in the week. And for a select set, it is preserving a small ritual or reward that shoppers still value enough to keep.
Center Store products are competing for a clearer role.
Center Store is competing in a broader food landscape as restaurant share of household food spend has grown since 2020, while Center Store and perimeter grocery have both ceded share. Yet even as shoppers look beyond grocery for some eating occasions, they are continuing to make room for products that offer a useful function, small indulgence, or familiar moment of enjoyment.
Numerator groups food-based Center Store products into three roles: Meal Occasions & Solutions, Pantry-Building Staples, and Rituals & Rewards.
Since 2020, Rituals & Rewards gained 2.8 percentage points of Center Store spend share and 1.7 points of unit share. At the same time, Meal Occasions & Solutions and Pantry-Building Staples both ceded share.
This does not mean shoppers have stopped needing meals or pantry products. Rather, it points to a more selective pattern of demand. Rituals & Rewards are winning a greater share of dollars and units on fewer trips, signaling that brands and retailers have an opportunity to build portfolios around the smaller moments shoppers still choose to protect, whether that means everyday energy, a convenient boost, or an accessible treat.
Private label adds another dimension to that competition. It captures a much larger share of spending in Meal Occasions & Solutions and Pantry-Building Staples than in Rituals & Rewards, raising different questions about premium positioning and trade-down risk by product role.
Premium pricing alone is not enough to sustain demand. Products need to make an occasion more useful, flexible, or rewarding and give shoppers a reason to return.
Household resources shape grocery tradeoffs.
Price pressure is not experienced equally, and income alone does not tell the full story. A household’s available resources, including income adjusted for household size, shape how it responds when costs rise—whether a household forgoes a purchase, reworks the basket to make it fit, or protects a preferred choice. Those distinct responses come into focus across Struggling, Middle Class and Affluent households.
Struggling households have fewer ways to absorb rising costs. They saw the sharpest pullback in Center Store units per household and are more likely to consider food assistance when other savings tactics fall short.
Affluent households are more likely to preserve preferred choices. They are more willing to pay more for a product they want rather than make a substitution.
Middle Class households represent 47% of U.S. households and lead in the use of savings tactics such as promotions, coupons, loyalty rewards, and private-label products. Their behavior shows how a broad group of shoppers is reworking everyday grocery baskets to stay within budget.
Grocery value must help shoppers preserve routine.
When grocery budgets tighten, shoppers do not rely on a single savings tactic. Across household groups, common responses include choosing meals based on what is on sale, reducing spending elsewhere, and selecting a different set of meals that costs less.
Promotions are part of that equation. Promotional activity is increasingly concentrated in meal-building and pantry categories, where shoppers are navigating some of their most practical tradeoffs. Yet not every offer is equally productive—some offer types are more closely associated with larger Center Store baskets, while others may play a different role in making value visible.
Value will not look the same for every household, but the baseline is clear—53% of shoppers say lower prices or more discounts would make grocery shopping more affordable, and 34% want affordable essentials reliably in stock. Loyalty can extend that value proposition, particularly for Middle Class and Affluent households, 33% of whom view rewards as an affordability lever, compared with 24% of Struggling households.
When that baseline falls short, the purchase itself is at risk. Nearly one in four shoppers (23%) say they would skip a planned pantry item altogether if its price is higher than expected or it is unavailable, rather than simply pay more. For brands and retailers, that makes visible value and dependable availability as important as the offer itself.
What Center Store brands and retailers can do next.
Center Store growth will not come from treating every category, household, or purchase occasion the same. The strongest strategies will:
- Build a reason to return. Identify the needs, routines, and moments that make a product shoppers come back to, not one they try and leave behind.
- Protect the core and flex the rest. Understand which product attributes must remain intact and where brand, pack, format, or different price-point options can give shoppers more workable options.
- Make value work by household. Connect pricing, promotion, loyalty, and assortment decisions to the ways different households manage budget pressures, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all value proposition.
The Center Store basket is becoming more selective, but it is not becoming less important. Products that help shoppers solve a need, build flexibility, or preserve a valued ritual can still earn their place. Numerator’s purchase-verified data and consumer survey insights help brands and retailers connect what shoppers say with what they actually buy, identifying where relevance is strengthening, where routine is eroding, and how to respond.
Download The Purposeful Pantry for the full analysis and practical guidance on building a stronger Center Store strategy across product roles, household needs, private label, and value.
