Grocery Store Feasibility Study in Missouri

Fewer grocers, much larger loans

Missouri grocery lending runs light on frequency and heavy on size. The median loan of $571,600 is 1.62x the class's national median, while the 0.67x location quotient places grocery as a thinner part of Missouri lending than of the national book. Grocery ranks 17 of 39 among Missouri asset types and the state ranks 21 of 55. The file records 46 approvals between FY2017 and FY2026 totaling $34.0 million, and half of them sit between $234,275 and $1.0 million. No Missouri grocery metric differs enough from its comparison figures to be called distinctive, so the median, cancellation and loss all read as ordinary figures. Even so, the median loan remains the number a study should set its project cost against, along with the 46 approvals and $34.0 million that make up the record.

Programs, banks and counties

Missouri grocers took 38 loans under 7(a) and 8 under 504. Franchising reaches 15.2% of loans. Commerce Bank is the lender SBA reports as the current holder of 5 loans worth $2.4 million, and the remaining loans sit with other banks. Saint Louis County holds 6 loans, Barry County 4, and Christian, Hickory, Jackson and Saint Louis City each 3. Counts ranged from 10 loans in FY2017 to just 1 in FY2025.

Cancellation is 7.3% at minimum for FY2017 through FY2024 approvals and 9.8% at the ceiling. Missouri has no published charge-off rate: Loan Analytics withholds a rate when fewer than 30 funded loans sit behind it, and the early cohort here is below that line. A blank rate is not proof that no loan ever defaulted.

What a Missouri grocery study should test

The large median says projects here are often full stores, so the study should test volume first: trade area population and spending, the nearest competing supermarket, and the loyalty of the existing customer base around Saint Louis, Kansas City or a small town without a store. Margins are thin, so shrink, labor and the supplier relationship must be explained. Purchase or construction cost, including refrigeration and inventory, should be set beside the $571,600 median. The coverage test on the payment should assume lower sales than plan for the first months. An appraiser will price the real estate and the operating store separately, so the study should provide store-level sales per square foot.