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Grocery-anchored retail as your lever in a broader tenant mix strategy

Kinexio

24 February,2026

1 min read

Consumer habits are shifting.

Margin pressure across discretionary retail is growing.

Grocery-anchored shopping centers are now re-emerging as one of the most resilient and strategically dynamic formats in the market.

However, grocery anchoring is not a universal solution, nor is it inherently better than other retail strategies. The real competitive advantage lies in understanding the tenant mix in granular detail.

What is driving footfall?

Which categories convert spend?

How are category leases structured?

Grocery anchoring is one effective expression of that strategy, but it is ultimately the quality of curation and performance insight that determines success.

So what does matter most?

The same thing that always has; creating a meaningful destination. One where the mix of occupiers reflects both customer demand and commercial reality.

Follow the money, not the narrative

If there is any doubt in the power of a grocery anchor, institutional capital has already settled it.

In late 2025, private equity giant Blackstone acquired a portfolio of grocery-anchored retail centers spanning roughly 2 million square feet, anchored by tenants such as Kroger and H-E-B.

This wasn’t an isolated bet. It was part of a much larger strategy.

Blackstone also moved to acquire Retail Opportunity Investments Corp, owner of more than 90 grocery-anchored shopping centers, in a $4 billion deal, underscoring growing investor conviction in necessity-based retail.

Why?

Because grocery-anchored retail behaves differently from other retail.

Transaction volume in grocery-anchored centers surged to $7 billion in 2024 alone, with investor demand accelerating rapidly.

Investors are not buying supermarkets because they are exciting.

They are buying them because they are predictable.

In real estate, predictability is profit.

Grocery footfall is essential, not optional

Grocery retail occupies a distinctive position within the retail landscape. It is needs-based. Habitual. And relatively insulated from economic volatility compared with purely discretionary categories.

Consumers may delay fashion purchases or leisure spending, but they continue to shop for food weekly, often multiple times per week. You cannot postpone dinner.

For shopping centres facing fluctuating visitation patterns, this consistency can provide a valuable foundation. Well-integrated grocery stores generate reliable, recurring footfall, which attracts other retailers and stabilises surrounding businesses.

This foot traffic becomes the oxygen for everything around it.

When incorporated into a wider scheme, a grocery anchor increases visit frequency and creates natural cross-shopping opportunities.

The coffee shop survives because people stop after buying groceries. The fitness studio survives because people combine errands. The pharmacy survives because convenience compounds.

Grocery anchors often operate on long leases

The most successful shopping centres share one common trait: they are curated through performance insight rather than assumption.

Understanding retailer sales performance across categories is fundamental to determining which adjacencies genuinely benefit from grocery-driven footfall.

Sales collection provides visibility into trading densities, conversion patterns and the relative strength of different uses. Without this data, leasing decisions risk being reactive rather than strategic.

Equally important is a clear understanding of lease performance and event risk. Grocery anchors often operate on long leases with strong covenants, offering income stability.

Surrounding units may have shorter terms, turnover-linked structures or upcoming expiries. Analysing lease profiles alongside trading data enables asset managers to proactively refine the mix, strengthening complementary categories and repositioning weaker ones.

Grocery anchoring becomes one tool within a broader, data-led asset management strategy.

Groceries provide a daily reason to visit

One of the advantages of grocery integration is its ability to embed a centre into customers’ weekly routines. This habitual engagement strengthens brand familiarity and reinforces the centre’s role within the local community.

Yet everyday relevance must be supported by coherence. If the surrounding tenant mix feels disconnected from the grocery proposition, the centre risks becoming a convenience cluster rather than a curated destination.

The most successful schemes balance essential retail with experiential, lifestyle and service-driven categories that elevate the overall proposition.

Brand, footfall and performance are closely linked. A clearly defined identity attracts the right occupiers; the right occupiers drive sustainable sales; sustainable sales underpin income resilience.

Long-term resilience for shopping centers

As shopping centres change, grocery anchoring represents an increasingly popular strategy to stabilise and grow footfall.

But it is not the strategy.

It is one expression of a deeper principle: that performance is shaped by deliberate tenant curation, informed by data and aligned with a clear brand vision.

For owners and operators, the priority should not be to replicate formats, but to understand their own assets in detail.

What is driving frequency?

Which categories convert?

Where are the gaps in the mix?

Grocery may provide a compelling answer in many contexts, but only when integrated into a thoughtful, performance-led ecosystem.

Resilience is rarely accidental. It is the result of informed curation, disciplined asset management and a tenant mix that works as a cohesive whole.