Know Your Numbers: The Financial Habits Behind Independent Grocery’s Top Performers

What separates the independent grocers who are pulling ahead from those who are just staying even? It is not location, store size, or product mix. It comes down to financial discipline — and the operators who have it are running fundamentally different businesses than those who do not.

FMS Chief Relationship Officer Jon Cline has spent his career at every level of this industry, from bagging groceries in high school to leadership roles at Arthur Andersen, Fleming, and Supervalu. In a new feature for The Shelby Report, he shares what today’s top-performing independent grocers are doing differently — and what others can learn from them.

What the Best Operators Are Doing

The insights are practical, not theoretical. A few that stood out:

• Top performers think of each department as a business within a business. They understand contribution to overhead by department — not just store-wide gross margin. A deli running 42% gross margin but 38% labor is contributing almost nothing to overhead. You need to know that quickly.
• Budgeting is not optional anymore. Tighter margins, elevated labor costs, and unpredictable consumer behavior have changed the math. Without a budget, you are reacting. With one, you are managing.
• Benchmarking changes the game. Independent operators now have access to the same financial intelligence the big chains have had for decades — and the operators using it are making better decisions on pricing, staffing, and capital investment.
• Connected data is where the difference gets made. When shrink data, labor data, and financial data live in the same platform, problems surface before they hit the bottom line — not after.

The article also features a real example from Brooks Davis, a family-owned independent grocer who put two additional percent on the bottom line in perishables after implementing FMS Track-It™ to get control of shrink data.

If you run an independent grocery operation — or work with one — this one is worth your time.

Read the full article in The Shelby Report