The Most Popular Grocery Store in Maine Doesn’t Make Sense At All

If you spend enough time on the internet, you can probably find a graph or map detailing every state's favorite thing. Most of those graphs and maps cherry-pick one particular statistic in hopes that people will react positively or negatively to the finding. So it appears the internet is victorious again, because one of the latest maps has determined that Maine's most popular grocery store is...Trader Joe's?

Shared on Reddit by __slevine, it's no knock on Trader Joe's. Their Marginal Way location in Portland remains one of the busiest grocery stores in Maine. But it's also the only Trader Joe's in the entire state, bringing into question the validity of a map deeming it Maine's most "popular" grocery store.

The map makes it clear that the science behind its findings is simply foot traffic. If you've been to Trader Joe's in Portland, you know there's plenty of foot traffic. But it would also be fair to question whether the foot traffic at Trader Joe's is any more significant than a nearby Hannaford location or a Walmart Supercenter. One of the fatal flaws in this internet map becomes clearer once you dig a little deeper.

Walmart and Target weren't included because they are not strictly grocery stores. Additionally, grocery stores that predominantly operate in only one state were left out of the findings as well. If your favorite grocery store is Hannaford, you'd never know it by this research. In fact, Maine only has two popular grocery stores according to WiseVoter: Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. We all know better.