H-E-B ranked top U.S. grocery retailer by dunnhumby

San Antonio-based independent grocery chain H-E-B has taken top honors again in dunnhumby’s Retailer Preference Index (RPI) study, the London-based data analytics firm announced Wednesday. 

It’s the fourth time H-E-B has earned the top honor and the third year in a row, dunnhumby noted in a press release. “In the last three years, H-E-B has separated itself from the rest of the top five due to their superior ability to deliver a combination of better savings, quality, shopping experience, and assortment,” dunnhumby noted.

Market Basket, a 95-store chain headquartered in Tewksbury, Mass., took second place, followed by Costco in third place, WinCo Foods in fourth place, and Aldi in fifth place. 

“Since releasing the first U.S. Grocery RPI eight years ago, retailers and shoppers have weathered COVID, supply chain disruptions, agricultural shortages due to climate impacts, and a prolonged period of high food inflation that have reshaped shopping behavior and how Americans perceive the grocery retail environment,” Matt O’Grady, dunnhumby's president of the Americas, said in the press release. “Clients across the grocery retail sector understand that market success is dependent upon saving shoppers money and implementing innovative pricing technologies to maintain their customer base.”

The annual study surveyed 11,000 U.S. consumers and found that saving shoppers money is the biggest predictor of long-term market success. 

“This pillar has been increasing in importance over the last eight years, with 38% of a retailer’s long-term success now based on their price, promotions, and rewards proposition, the highest percentage in the history of the RPI,” dunnhumby noted. 

The report noted that three of the top four winners—H-E-B, Market Basket, and WinCo—are regional chains.

Dunnhumby also said the report’s findings showed that retailers with strong value propositions grew as much as 2.5 times faster over a five-year period relative to those with lower rankings in the RPI study.  

Both Kroger and Albertsons dropped in the rankings “which may be a sign of the negative halo cast by the merger news headlines,” dunnhumby noted. 

Meanwhile, Amazon dropped out of the top three for the first time in eight years, and both Trader Joe’s and Lidl moved up in the rankings, the report stated. 

“Lidl saw modest improvements in a few areas: prices, digital, and operations. This, coupled with the uptick in importance of savings (their strength) and downtick in importance of quality (their weakness), explained their jump,” the report stated. “Trader Joe’s, a former top U.S. Grocery Retailer in the RPI, stopped its slide and improved its ranking from the 15th position to the eighth position by being ahead of the market on quality while being about average at savings.”