Heritage Grocers Group, which also owns Tony’s Fresh Markets, has expanded its Hispanic grocery presence with the purchase of the El Rancho Supermercado chain.
Heritage Grocers Group, the parent of Cardenas Markets and Tony’s Fresh Markets, has completed the acquisition of Garland, Texas-based El Rancho Supermercado. The chain has 27 stores in Texas and one in Kansas.
El Rancho will remain headquartered in Texas and will continue to operate under its own banner within the Ontario, California-based Heritage Grocers company.
With the acquisition, Heritage will now have 113 stores, including 57 Cardenas Markets locations, 21 Tony’s Fresh Market stores and seven Los Altos Ranch Market locations.
The move is another sign of the growing popularity of specialty grocers in the U.S. According to data released by the analytics firm Placer.ai, specialty grocers, including El Rancho Supermercado, are outpacing other grocers in visits over the last year.
Monthly visits to leading grocers fell from May 2022 to this April, while visits to El Rancho remained up 7.3% in April. About 44.7% of the households in El Rancho’s trade areas are Hispanic, far outpacing the 18.1% share of Hispanic households nationwide, Placer.ai found.
“As the wider grocery sector continues to feel the impact of inflation and tighter consumer budgets, specialty grocers—and especially grocers catering to Hispanic audiences—are thriving,” the report found.