It sounds like a math problem for a college entrance exam: If Shopper X has Y amount of dollars to spend on groceries, how will she choose to distribute it among Retailers A, B and C when the cost of food and gas have increased Z percent?

Throw in all the various permutations about the proximity of the retailers and their variability in pricing and selection, and it becomes an even more complex calculation.

Increasingly, according to data provided to SN by Chicago-based Information Resources Inc., shoppers have decided that the best way to distribute their grocery spending is to make large, pantry-filling purchases at supercenters — even though they may be farther away — and use nearby supermarkets and drug stores for fill-in purchases.

“Shoppers are engaged in a fine balancing act of trying to conserve gas and save money,” said Sheila McCusker, editor of IRI's “Times & Trends” report. “As supercenters offer low-cost, one-stop shopping, consumers are making the trip when pantry-stocking.”

The shift appears to have been a detriment to supermarkets, where customers have cut back their spending, and a boon to drug stores, which appear to be picking up some fill-in business. McCusker noted that while the total number of shopping trips to drug stores is down, the size of the trips is up.

Shoppers are also making calculations about the value of convenience within the store, opting for basic cooking ingredients to prepare meals from scratch and eschewing prepared foods — even as reports indicate a decline in restaurant spending.

While IRI data show big gains in dollar sales at supermarkets for many items, in many cases those gains are a refection of inflation, while unit sales have actually declined. In fresh categories like milk and natural cheese, for example, dollar sales for the 12-month period that ended June 15 were up 13.9% and 11.7%, respectively, while unit sales were down by 3.9% for milk and 2.1% for cheese. Interestingly, both categories saw gains in both unit and dollar sales in the drug channel during the 12-month span.

McCusker said she expects consumer shopping behavior to remain on its current course for at least another year.

“We do not expect to see improvement in economic conditions until at least the second quarter of 2009,” she told SN. “So for the next 12 months, we can expect consumers to continue to shift behavior in response to evolving economic conditions.

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“With CPG prices expected to rise further in the third quarter, and elevated home heating costs ready to hit consumers as winter approaches, we will see yet another round of belt-tightening, and further changes in shopping behavior,” she said.

Even over the longer term, she does not expect shopper behavior to return to “pre-downturn” levels because she does not expect the economy to rebound to the way it was before the current recession-like cycle began almost a year ago.

“[The economy] will be fundamentally transformed,” she said. “Further, given the extended period of this downturn, new habits may form that could have staying power.”