You know your own numbers cold.
You've never seen anyone else's.
The RIO Index is the operating benchmark for regional independent grocers. Getting free access couldn't be simpler. Add just three little numbers and get the whole big picture: how chains your size actually run, across the thirty-plus metrics that matter.
That intel becomes a real edge.
Where other operators like you land, on the numbers you live in.
Never mind Kroger — how about the 14-store chain in the next region that you never get to talk to?
Are they running leaner on labor? Holding less shrink? Turning inventory faster?
You might run your stores differently if you only knew. You've just never gotten the chance to know …until now.
Multi-store operators are too big to run on instinct yet too lean to staff an analytics team. The big annual study is great — but it's once a year, and it lumps all sizes together. Nobody publishes the numbers for chains exactly your size.
So, we built it ourselves.
Add just three little numbers.
See over thirty key benchmarks.
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Add three numbers.
Ninety seconds, straight from your back office.
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Get the full view.
Not only the three you shared — the complete read for operators your size, across every metric in the Index. You put in only three; you get the complete view.
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Stay in the know.
A concise weekly newsbrief: who's expanding, who's selling, which tech actually paid back, and real numbers behind the moves.
Two valuable things land in your inbox. You get both.
Built from two separate sources — one is the quarterly benchmark, one is regional independent operator news.
The benchmark itself, built from operators like you.
Labor share, shrink, basket, inventory turns, sales per labor hour, private-label share, and two dozen more — broken out by how many stores you run, published with the sample size and how we got it in plain sight. We show the broader landscape; so you understand where your number sits.
The news behind the regional independent numbers.
Scan it in sixty seconds, forward it in one click: what's actually happening to chains your size — who's expanding, who's selling, which tech paid back, and what flopped. The kind of intel you forward with "story two — why aren't we doing this yet?"
It works exactly the same way independents have always done.
We pool together what we know, and all walk out smarter. Each operator who adds a tiny sliver sharpens the big picture for all participants.
You see everyone; nobody sees you.
Everything is pooled and anonymous. We report on independent chain operators your size — never named, never identifiable. That's the only way an exchange earns the honesty it runs on.
Who the RIO Index is for
Built for regional independent grocers running 5 to 50 stores. If you can name your labor percentage off the top of your head and still wonder how it stacks up, this is for you.
There's another track built for convenience operators kept separately — fuel margin, inside-vs-fuel, foodservice — so that key dimensions line up with the c-store world.