Publix? Aldi? Sedano’s? Kroger? Another? Pick your favorite supermarket in South Florida
Everyone has to shop for groceries.
Maybe you make trips to several supermarkets each week. Maybe you just stick to one. Or perhaps you order your groceries online for delivery.
Whatever the case, you probably have a favorite store.
Reason? Selection. Price. Atmosphere. Location.
We want to hear from you.
What’s your favorite supermarket in South Florida?
Here’s what to know to make your voice heard:
How to vote
Where to find the poll: Read about the stores below and then take our poll at the bottom of the article.
How to see the survey: It’s not a scientific survey, but it will give all of us an idea of the most popular stores in South Florida. If you can’t see the poll, turn off your ad blocker.
Next rounds: Vote for your favorite store, and we’ll narrow down the winners until we — or, rather you — declare an all-around favorite grocery store.
Deadline: The first round of voting closes at the end of Sunday, Aug. 13. You can then vote on the Top 10 survivors starting next week.
About each store on the ballot
▪ Aldi: Aldi, a discount grocer founded in Germany in 1946 that dispenses with frills like fancy displays and carryout service and instead offers food staples and household at reduced prices. The focus aims more on its own brands rather than pricier names. Aldi has 2,297 locations in the United States, and Florida, with 209, is second only to Illinois’ 211 in number of locales.
▪ BJ’s Wholesale Club: A membership-driven wholesale club, similar to Costco, that sells a mix of brand and its own goods like food, household cleaners, electronics (TVs, laptops, smart phones, tablets), home and yard furnishing. Outlets may also include an eyeglass shop, gas station, and separate alcohol alcove. Families buy in bulk here.
▪ Bravo Supermarkets: Bravo, a chain of 70 supermarkets established in 1991, operates from New York to South Florida with the slogan, “Every aisle leads home.”
▪ Costco: Costco, a branded membership-driven warehouse club, similar to BJ’s. Sells a lot of everything in bulk.
▪ Fresco y Más: Part of Southeastern Grocers, the Jacksonville parent company that also owns Winn-Dixie. Fresco y Más is more or less the same as the familiar Winn-Dixie but it’s marketed to a Hispanic audience.
▪ The Fresh Market: Inspired by a European trip, Ray and Beverly Berry opened the first Fresh Market in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1982. There are about 160 stores — 46 in Florida — featuring produce, coffees, floral stands, deli and other grocery goods.
▪ Gordon Food Service: Gordon Food Service is a family-run chain of markets that cater to restaurants, chefs and the general food industry. The no-frills Michigan-based market has 175 stores in 13 states, including Florida, with two stores apiece in Miami-Dade (Little Havana and Flagami), Broward (Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale) and Palm Beach, and a Key West location on Roosevelt Boulevard.
▪ Kroger: Kroger, a national grocery giant, bypassed brick and mortar locations in Florida, operating spoke facilities around the state to deliver groceries to customers as an online retailer, like Amazon. The company’s Opa-locka hub opened in 2022 and serves a 90-mile delivery radius in South Florida.
▪ Milam’s Market: Thomas Milam, who had years of experience in the grocery industry post-World War II, opened the first Milam’s Market grocery store at the Red Bird Shopping Center with his son Allen in 1984. That store near Coral Gables remains and is joined by six other locations from Sunny Isles Beach to Pinecrest, run by 13 members of the Milam family.
▪ Plum Market: The small chain Plum Market, founded by two former Whole Food employees, opened amid grocery-chain festooned Aventura in January with a focus on local, natural and organic fruits and veggies, along with prepared food, apothecary items and wine.
▪ Presidente Supermarket: Opened in 1990 by a South Florida Cuban-American Omar Rodriguez, the chain numbers about 30 stores in the tri-county Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach areas.
▪ Publix: The Lakeland-based supermarket giant that coined the phrase, “Where shopping is a pleasure,” and, one could argue, the acronym BOGO and the sandwich nickname you’ll wait at the deli counter for, Pub Sub. Publix, founded by George Jenkins in Winter Haven in 1930, has 1,334 stores — 847 in Florida — according to the company’s most recent figures.
▪ Sabor Tropical Supermarket: Doral-based Latin American grocery aimed at the Hispanic market has eight locations in Miami-Dade and opened nearly 15 years ago.
▪ Sam’s Club: A chain of 600 membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned and operated by Walmart. Sam’s Club was founded in 1983 and named after Walmart founder Sam Walton. It is based in Arkansas.
▪ Sedano’s Supermarkets: Sedano’s started as a family-owned neighborhood grocer in Hialeah in 1962 and has grown into one of the largest Hispanic-owned supermarket chains with 35 stores in Florida, including its Miami-Dade base and locations in Broward and Central Florida’s Orange and Osceola counties.
▪ Sprouts Farmers Market: The Phoenix-based Sprouts puts the produce aisle front and center as nearly a quarter of its grocery stores business. You’ll find a deli as well as packaged products at its more than 40 Florida locations. New Sprouts are in Delray Beach, Bradenton in June, West Boca, Fort Myers, Tampa, Orlando, West Melbourne and Kenneth City.
▪ Target: Like Walmart, Target sells a little of everything like a department store. But many larger Target locations have larger grocery store departments.
▪ Trader Joe’s: Trader Joe’s prides itself on running brick and mortar stores — they want you to come to them — and once inside you’ll find mostly Trader Joe branded merchandise. The chain was founded in Pasadena, California, in 1967, and has about 25 stores in Florida.
▪ Walmart: The nation’s largest grocery retailer, even if, like Target, it may be best known for its general merchandise aisles. But there are miles of aisles dedicated to groceries, too, at its nearly 4,700 locations. Florida, with 340 Walmarts, is second only to Texas’ 515, and ahead of California’s 278 locations. The chain even started experimenting with drone deliveries in partnership with DroneUp at 36 sites in seven states, including Florida.
▪ Whole Foods: Founded in 1980 in Austin, and a subsidiary of Amazon since 2017, Whole Foods promotes its vast selection of organic and “natural food” products.
▪ Winn-Dixie: Winn-Dixie, owned by Southeastern Grocers, can trace its roots back almost 100 years — to 1925, when founder Milton Davis moved to Miami and opened a precursor as Table Supply. Headquartered in Jacksonville and named Winn-Dixie in 1955, the familiar chain has 456 stores in Florida as of May 2023, nearly the bulk of its 542 stores in five states.
