The Supermarket That Beat Aldi And Kroger In A Recent Survey
USA Today has published its annual list of the top 10 supermarket brands. After a group of experts narrowed the number of brands down to ten, readers had a 28-day period to vote for their favorite. Despite the coverage Mashed tends to give to Aldi, Kroger, and Trader Joe's, none of these made it to the number one spot. The most beloved brand for readers of USA Today is The Fresh Market — and for the second year in a row.
Perhaps the reason for this is explained in the description that USA Today gave The Fresh Market. Noting that it drew inspiration from European markets, the description says that The Fresh Market became "a place where shoppers could have a more intimate and personalized experience than the warehouse-style supermarkets of the time."
"We are thrilled to be recognized as the best in America again," Jason Potter, the CEO of The Fresh Market, said in a statement, via Supermarket News.
Not everyone agrees with The Fresh Market's ranking
While The Fresh Market is USA Today's number one pick, the title is not universal. According to YouGov America, The Fresh Market comes in at the fifteenth place of most popular supermarket brands. The number of people who had heard of it were 62%, but only 37% had a particularly positive opinion about the brand.
At the top of YouGov's rankings is Trader Joe's. According to their poll, 93% of respondents had heard of the brand and 59% held positive views about it.
The reason why the title holders should change so drastically may simply be due to who responded to the survey. For example, Brooke Randolph compares Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and The Fresh Market in their blog Diets in Review. The Fresh Market had both a more noticeably pleasing atmosphere and a better variety of organic produce while Trader Joe's focuses on prepackaged or snack-like foods. Also, the piece repeatedly found that Whole Foods had either lower prices than or comparable prices to the other two. However, Whole Foods labors under the reputation of being the most expensive supermarket out there, regardless of the data found. That may account for why it didn't reach the top spot in either survey.