USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) Retail Food Store Locations and Characteristics Data

Statement of Work

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a requirement for individual store-level data on food retailers’ characteristics and location, including (but not limited to) store name, address, telephone number, location (longitude-latitude, state, county, and census tract), market area identifiers, annual sales, selling area, full-time equivalent employees, and number of checkout registers.

Intended Use and Purpose

Accurate, comprehensive retail foodstore data are needed to support current, ongoing, and planned research and data analytics activities conducted by the USDA. In recent years, concerns about the availability of healthful, affordable foods by households in low-income neighborhoods has resulted in the need for detailed information on the kinds and locations of retail foodstores. More broadly, detailed store-level data and information are needed to assess the household shopping impacts of access to foodstores.

The USDA will use the data for projects that support economic and policy research. The research projects are often undertaken in collaboration with external experts, including but not limited to economists, researchers, and survey and data methodologists at non-governmental organizations. The data may be used in combination with (linked to) other data to conduct and support research on a variety of topics. The resulting aggregated findings (not the raw data) will be disseminated through multiple media, including but not limited to professional economic journals, USDA publications, the USDA web site, and presentations at meetings of professional economics associations. Before public release, all publications and reports will be reviewed by USDA to meet data disclosure requirements and to strictly maintain privacy and confidentiality requirements of data purveyors. The USDA will retain the right to use the data and information indefinitely to undertake its projects as specified above.

General Tasks/Requirements

The requested data, information, and documentation (as specified in tasks below) are for the years 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030. The requested data, information, and documentation shall be for June 15th each year.

Each year of the required data, information, and documentation (on data sources, collection procedures, estimation methods, data dictionary, variable dictionary, data quality, and limitations) shall be submitted as a separate set. Data and information for each year shall be fully compatible, consistent, and able to integrate with data and information for any other year, particularly with respect to the geographic identifiers.

The required data and information will be submitted in Office Excel 2007 or later format or as a text file. The data documentation shall be delivered in a Microsoft Word Document format.

For third party collaboration, USDA requires a no-more-than one-week turn-around from the contractor, after which USDA assumes the approval has been granted and will proceed with the projects.

Base Year 1: This Year’s (June 2026) Data and Information; delivery due date July 1, 2026

1.1 Provide a comprehensive listing of:

I. All supermarkets (defined as a self-service grocery store carry all major food departments, and have annual total sales of $2 million or more)

II. All superettes (defined as grocery stores with $1 to $2 million in sales) III. All mass-merchandisers (outlets containing a well-defined area of supermarket-like food and non-food grocery items) IV. All wholesale clubs (membership store offering a large variety of food and non-food products) V. All drug stores (health and beauty care retailers) VI. Convenience stores (small format stores selling high convenience foods, including a limited number of grocery stores; only conventional and military, not those associated with a gas station);

1.2 Provide additional information for each outlet described above, including:

I. Store name II. Store address III. Geographic identifiers (State FIPS code; County FIPS code; Geo-code (street map level accuracy or better)) IV. Store type (supermarket, supercenter, etc.)

V. Store type sub-channel (supermarket/store format type) VI. Annual Commodity Volume (ACV)/annual sales (total) VII. Store size (square feet of selling area) VIII. An ID number to link individual stores to firm ownership, and to an ultimate parent firm, such as a domestic or foreign owner IX. Information on store categories (food, pharmacy, sales of gasoline, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages, for example) to the extent available X. Market area identifiers (MSA) XI. Data documentation on data sources, data collection procedures, estimation methods, data dictionary, variable description, channel and sub-channel attributes and definitions, data limitation, etc.; and

XII. SNAP and WIC authorized store identifiers

1.3 Provide data that can reveal, by year, which stores are new (entered the market for the first time) as well as which stores closed (were in their final year at their current location). In addition, provide data on changes of ownership for existing stores; such a variable should identify an existing store’s first year under changed (new) ownership.

1.4 Provide detailed documentation/report on data sources, collection procedures, estimation methods, data dictionary, variable description, data quality and limitations, etc.

1.5 Provide responses for third party agreements and reviews of material to be released (for presentations and or publications) no more than a week after it has been submitted to contractor.

Option Year 1-4: Data and information for 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030; delivery due date is July 1 of each data year.

For each of the five years – USDA is interested in the same data, information, documentation, and timely response as specified under (1.1), (1.2), (1.3), (1.4), and (1.5) above. The proposal shall provide the purchase options separately for each of the data years (2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030).