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mb34i t1_ja872df wrote

Reply to comment by Banea-Vaedr in ELI5: why do grocery stores in the US keep such a large inventory? Aside from being prepared for episodic panic buying like toilet paper or bottled water, is there an economic reason to do this? How much of the food ends up going bad? by DrEverythingBAlright

This. Grocery stores in the US are designed to serve a whole city or area; if you look closely they don't just have a lot of product, but also multiple check-out lanes and large parking lots. And the reason why is because the place is packed pretty much every evening and especially on the weekends, and lines actually form at the check-out registers.

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mynewaccount4567 t1_ja8o5hb wrote

While you aren’t wrong about them serving a lot of people, a whole city is vastly overstating it. In my area, there are 4 grocery stores within a 5 minute drive. 2 from the same chain so it’s not even strictly a competition thing. I don’t live in a super dense area either. Pretty typical suburban outskirts of a medium sized city.

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