Grocery Store Feasibility Study in Idaho

Idaho is neither a hotspot nor a backwater for grocery lending. Over the ten fiscal years SBA wrote 34 grocery store loans in the state, worth $23.3 million in gross dollars, which places Idaho 25 of 55 among states and with grocery itself 15 of 39 inside the state. Its location quotient, 0.81x, says grocers take a somewhat smaller slice of Idaho's SBA lending than they do in the national book. What does set the state apart is the size of the typical note: a median of $425,100 is 1.21x the national median for the class, so an Idaho grocer who borrows through SBA tends to borrow more than a counterpart elsewhere.

How the loans are structured

Half of the approvals sit between $104,375 and $1.2 million, a wide band that holds both a small neighborhood market and a store with real estate attached. The 7(a) program provided 27 of them and the 504 program just 7, so working capital, inventory and acquisition financing outweigh fixed-asset projects. Franchising is a minor thread at 11.8% of loans, which means most Idaho grocers in the file are independents without a brand standing behind the operating model. On the 7(a) side Idaho Central CU is the leading holder, with 9 loans worth $5.3 million. Geographically the loans cluster around the Treasure Valley: ADA County has 8, BOISE 6, TWIN FALLS 4, and CANYON and FREMONT 3 each.

Timing and the thin outcome record

Approvals have been uneven. FY2017 and FY2018 each saw 5 loans, FY2020 shrank to a single loan of $40,000, and FY2025 and FY2026 returned to 5 each, at $4.7 million and $4.2 million. A lender looking at that pattern should treat the state as a market where grocery lending comes in small, irregular batches rather than a steady stream. Cancellation and charge-off rates are withheld on this page because the cohort holds fewer than 30 loans; we neither print a number nor imply that the rate is nil. SBA's own records are the source throughout, and they describe loans these lenders hold or held, not a judgment on any institution.

What a grocery study in Idaho must test

The class is built from SBA industry codes that describe what the borrower does, not how the building is laid out, so a study should not assume that a loan in this file resembles the project in hand. The first question is demand: how many households sit within a realistic drive of the site, how much grocery spending already leaves the trade area, and what the nearest competing stores capture. The second is cost, since a median above the national figure invites the question of whether the build-out or acquisition price is justified by volume. The third is debt service coverage, tested on thin food-retail margins with a downside case for a slow first year. Finally, the appraisal has to support the collateral value if the store, the land or both secure the loan.