The Most Popular Place To Buy Groceries In The US May Surprise You

For those who love to cook, there's no doubt that shopping for ingredients is a big part of the thrill. Whether strolling through a farmers market, poking around a specialty food shop, or simply making a quick run to the nearest grocery store, tracking down the best raw materials for our favorite recipes can be almost as fun as the cooking process itself.

Many shoppers have strong loyalties to a particular store. Are you a serious Costco fan, someone who's likely to post their cooking triumphs in the lively Subreddit devoted to the wholesale giant's offerings? Or maybe you're a Trader Joe's devotee, the type of person who regularly purchases some of the store's most popular items like dark chocolate peanut butter cups and cauliflower gnocchi (via Trader Joe's)? No matter where your supermarket loyalty lies, you might be surprised by the results of a new study ranking customer satisfaction with some of the most popular grocery chains in the U.S.

For many food lovers, one of the most important aspects of grocery shopping is the in-person assessment of what's on offer: the opportunity to sniff a fresh peach, to inspect the marbling on a steak, to peel back the husk on an ear of corn. So it might come as a surprise to learn that in a recent study of U.S. retailer preferences, shoppers ranked the online mega giant Amazon as their number one choice for buying groceries (via dunnhumby).

According to NJ.com, the nationwide survey conducted by data services agency dunnhumby asked 10,000 U.S. households to assess grocery stores' performance based on a variety of factors, including affordability, quality, and convenience. Study results found that over the past two years, digital grocery sales have more than doubled, which explains why Amazon took the prize — for the second year in a row.

But the study also found that many people still prefer to shop in person. Second and third on the list were two brick-and-mortar stores: H-E-B, a Texas-based chain with more than 340 stores in Texas and Mexico (via H-E-B), and Market Basket, a Massachusetts-based chain with more than 86 locations in New England (via Market Basket). Wegmans came in fourth, and Amazon made another appearance with its Amazon Fresh offerings ranking in fifth place.