Specifically at grocery stores.
This weekend I was grocery shopping, and it occurred to me whilst attempting to find the one or two whole bean offerings amid the sea of pre-ground coffee and k-cups that I haven’t seen coffee grinders in a grocery store in years. It feels like, growing up through the 90s and early aughts, most stores would have at least a few options to grind fresh, or at least the Bakers near my home did. However, at some point, they were seemingly removed everywhere.
Of course, my intuition tells me that it benefits stores to not have such specialized machinery in place so as to allow maximum flexibility with store layout, but I’m curious if anyone has an inside scoop.
Bags / cans of pre-ground is also on the decline in my neck of the woods. The exception being pods. Half of my coffee aisles are pods.
I feel like most people are in one of two large camps. Whole bean people with grinders or self grinding machines, and pod people.
The pre-ground bag / can people are an increasingly small slice of the pie.