Grocery Store Multiples Report

A grocery multiple is a price per dollar of recast earnings. It is not a personality. It is not a food-desert speech. Grocery Store Business Broker — HedgeStone Business Advisors, led by Jason Taken — will not invent a city sold-comp to make a seller feel better, and will not treat 3.38 as a quote on an oral lease.

The only sourced transaction sample on this site is BizBuySell grocery and supermarket businesses sold on that listing site. 3.38 average earnings multiple in 2025. 2.66 average for 2021–2025. Sold-business earnings-multiple interquartile range 1.60–3.15 for those same years. 0.43 average revenue multiple on the 2025 sold sample. That is the whole published set we will use. Read how to value a grocery store for the method that sits under the band. The valuation pillar is the same sample in hub form.

FMI’s 2.1 percent average net profit for food retailers in 2025 is a food-retailer net sample. It is not a multiple. FMI’s $1 trillion in 2025 supermarket sales, 45,575 U.S. supermarkets in 2024, $668,377 average weekly sales per supermarket, and $19.59 weekly sales per selling square foot describe the Speaks supermarket channel. Do not multiply $668,377 by 52 and call the product your value.

The only sourced grocery sold sample on this site

BizBuySell is a listing site. The grocery and supermarket sold set is businesses that listed there and reported a sale. It is not a census of every independent that changed hands. It is not a supermarket-chain merger table. It is not a county recorder extract. Use it as a national band. Do not use it as a comp for the store three miles away unless you also have that store’s recast, lease, and count.

How much is a grocery store worth is the short cite. This report is the longer one. Print the SDE worksheet and write the four figures at the top: 3.38, 2.66, 1.60–3.15, 0.43. Then put your recast under them. The valuation calculator applies a multiple you type. It does not bless 3.38.

An interquartile range is the middle half of the sold sample. 1.60–3.15 means plenty of grocery files sold below 2× and plenty sold above 3× on that site. The average can sit outside the middle of your file. A 70-hour owner, an oral lease, or a SNAP-heavy week with no compliance history belongs nearer 1.60 than 3.38. A store that runs without the seller, with remaining term and documented shrink, can argue the upper half. Argue with paper. Do not argue with a trophy year.

SDE and EBITDA are the earnings bases those multiples attach to. SDE versus EBITDA explains why you must pick one. The BizBuySell tables do not itemize which filing used which definition. That is another reason the average is a sample, not a quote. Recasting a grocery P&L comes first. A clean 2.2× on an honest recast beats a sloppy 3.38 on net income.

Earnings multiples versus a revenue sanity check

An earnings multiple asks: how many years of recast cash is the buyer paying for the going concern, before inventory? A revenue multiple asks: what fraction of a year’s sales is that same going-concern price? Grocery is high-turn and thin-net. FMI’s 2.1 percent net sample is why a 0.8× revenue price on an independent usually means you priced a restaurant story. The 0.43 average on the 2025 BizBuySell sold sample is the sanity check. If your implied revenue multiple is double that on a low-margin box, stop and recast again.

Revenue multiples hide rent and labor. Two stores at $4 million sales can have wildly different SDE because occupancy and the owner line differ. Evaluating a store’s P&L and anatomy of a grocery P&L are how you see the hide. The rent checker catches a high-rent box that looks cheap on revenue. What is a reasonable rent-to-sales ratio is the short occupancy question.

Inventory is not inside the earnings multiple. Buyers pay inventory at cost for sellable stock. A 2.4× on SDE plus a $200,000 count is not “2.4× including inventory.” Write the count as a separate line. See how inventory is counted and the inventory value estimator. Working capital is the cash after the count. It is not a vibe inside 3.38.

Owned real estate is a second asset. Recast the store on market rent, then cap the building. A multiple that “includes the dirt” is two prices taped together. Read selling with a lease versus real estate and buying a store with real estate. Sale-leaseback is a structure, not a multiple.

Why format and lease move you inside the IQR

An independent supermarket with a hired director can live higher in the band than a neighborhood grocery that dies when the owner is gone. A rural grocery can be a good living and a difficult loan. A discount or salvage file lives on a different shrink story. A gas-station grocery mixes fuel into the food recast. This report will not invent format-specific sold comps. Benchmark KPIs by format are a cross-check. They are not a second multiple table.

Lease remaining term under 24 months without options is a price cut. Assignment, exclusive use, and co-tenancy surprise civilians. CAM true-ups can erase a year of “extra” SDE and drop you in the IQR overnight. Lease diligence belongs next to the multiple, not after it. Can I sell if my lease is ending is the short version.

Licenses move the check more than a tenth of a turn. USDA FNS: SNAP does not transfer. Budget downtime. Alcohol is a class, a quota, or a control-state product. NABCA lists 17 control states plus local-control pockets. See what happens to SNAP when you sell and liquor transfer. Write those clocks into the LOI. A buyer who has never held a permit does not get 3.38 because the aisle is pretty.

Shrink, margin, and turns explain why two stores at the same sales are not twins. Documented shrink and department math support the upper half. A storewide “healthy margin” that hides meat and produce belongs lower. Scan data is how you prove the week. Read verifying sales with scan data.

What this sample is not

It is not chain M&A. A regional banner buying twenty boxes is a different market. Read grocery M&A landscape for orientation, not for a substitute multiple. It is not an FMI channel fact. FMI counts stores and weekly sales. FMI does not sell your box. It is not a CBP establishment count. Those fields are null in the research pack. This page will not invent them.

It is not a promise that SBA 7(a) will fund 3.38. The published 7(a) maximum is $5 million. Lenders buy DSCR on a recast they believe. The DSCR calculator will fail a high multiple on thin cash even when the listing-site average looks friendly. Seller notes on standby change senior DSCR. They do not raise the sample. See seller financing and what is a standby seller note.

A 3.38 average on a listing site also does not mean every grocery in 2025 sold at 3.38. Averages hide the IQR. The middle half of that sold sample sat between 1.60 and 3.15. If your broker or your brother-in-law only quotes the 2025 average, ask them where the file sits in the middle half and why. If they cannot answer with lease remaining term, license lag, and whether the store runs without the seller, they are quoting a year, not pricing a store. How to value a grocery store is the walk that uses the IQR first.

It is not a distressed-file novel. Distressed stores still have inventory and a lease. Price those. Read selling a distressed grocery and buying a distressed store. It is not a family-sale discount schedule. Selling to a manager still needs a real multiple and a real note. See selling to family or an employee.

Unreported cash does not get a “street multiple.” It does not survive SBA or a serious conventional buyer. Read selling a store with unreported cash. Comparing offers means cash at close, note terms, inventory treatment, and license risk — not which buyer typed 3.38 in an email.

Using the band without treating 3.38 as a quote

Illustrative, not a quote. Recast SDE $188,000. Inventory at cost $161,000. Low inside the IQR at 1.70×: $188,000 × 1.70 + $161,000 = $480,600. Mid at 2.40×: $612,200. High at 3.00×: $725,000. The 2025 average 3.38 would be $188,000 × 3.38 + $161,000 = $796,440. If remaining term is 20 months with no options, you do not live at $796,440 because you liked the 2025 average. If implied revenue multiple on $5.2 million sales is 0.12 at the low end and 0.15 at 3.38, you are still in a grocery conversation versus 0.43 as a ceiling check — a 0.43× revenue price on that sales line would be $2.24 million going-concern before you even argue honesty. That is how the sanity check works. It stops a story. It does not replace SDE.

How to value a grocery store walks the same math with a different teaching file. Recasting is how you got $188,000. Escrow, holdbacks, and earn-outs explain why the check at close is not the headline. Holdbacks exist because grocery has shrink and successor tax risk. Earn-outs are hard because the buyer controls mix after Monday.

Where you sit inside 1.60–3.15 is a file argument, not a personality argument. Remaining lease term with options supports the upper half. A store that runs without the seller supports the upper half. Documented shrink and scan that matches the return support the upper half. Oral leases, 70-hour owners, unreported cash, and license lag support the lower half. You can have a beautiful produce table and still live at 1.80×. You can have a tired vestibule and still live at 2.60× if the recast is clean. The sample gives the rails. The file places the pin. Evaluating a store’s P&L is how a buyer places it. Shrink, margin, and turns is how operations place it.

Taxes and allocation change the net even when the multiple stays put. Taxes on selling and asset sale versus stock sale belong next to the band. Most independents close as an asset sale. Deal-structure glossary is the vocabulary. How much money you need is the buyer-side cash that has to fit the same multiple.

Sellers start at sell a grocery store and the seller playbook. Buyers start at buy a grocery store and the buyer workbook. State pages such as sell in Ohio do not get a state-specific multiple. They get the same national sample plus state tax and wage context. How it works is the process. Grocery industry outlook is channel talk. It does not replace 1.60–3.15.

Change the inputs, then book the conversation

Write your recast. Write remaining lease term. Write whether the store runs without you. Circle where you sit in the IQR and why. If you cannot defend a lift above 2.66 with paper, do not start the CIM at 3.38.

Jason Taken will apply the sourced band to the file you bring. He will not invent a local sold set. Book a confidential intro with the worksheet marked and the four BizBuySell figures written at the top.

Worked math for Grocery Store Multiples Report

Price language for Grocery Store Multiples Report is (recast SDE x a defendable multiple) + inventory at cost, plus or minus lease and license risk. The table is one consistent example for this URL.

Input or output	Illustrative figure
Weekly sales (illustrative)	$168,000
Annual sales	$8,736,000
Recast SDE	$454,272 (5.2% of sales)
Inventory at cost	$485,333 (~18 turns)
Occupancy check	$235,872 / year (2.7% of sales)
Low going-concern	$1,393,877 at 2.00x SDE + inventory
High going-concern	$1,711,867 at 2.70x SDE + inventory
Sketch DSCR on a note	1.52

Rent at 2.7% of sales is the occupancy check. If the real lease is higher, the SDE in this table is too generous until you recast to market rent.

Book the intro call with your side of the table ready: seller files or buyer capital. The calendar is the only next step.