Grocery Stores are Shrinking

"The idea is to lure time-starved shoppers who want to pick up a few items or a fast meal without wandering long grocery aisles or paying restaurant prices."

"The opening of smaller stores upends a long-running trend in the grocery business: building ever-larger stores in the belief that consumers want choice above all. While the largest traditional grocery stores tend to be about 85,000 square feet, some cavernous warehouse-style stores and supercenters are two or three times that size.

Statistics compiled by the Food Marketing Institute show that the average size of a grocery store dipped slightly in 2007 - to a median of 47,500 square feet - after 20 years of steady growth."