Data Dashboard

Food System Economy

Home 5 Data Dashboard 5 Food System Economy

How to get the most out of this dashboard

Read through from top to bottom to get the whole story
Scroll over the charts to get nitty gritty details
Click on a color in the Key to hone in on that selection
Enter Full Screen Mode by clicking this button in the lower right of each chart

Note: Dollar values are adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars.

Total Food System Sales

This chart has an interactive menu!
Click the Year menu on the left and use the arrows for more information.

Food systems encompass all of the people, resources, and processes involved in moving food from farm and ocean to plate. A regional analysis prepared for New England Feeding New England estimated the value of sales for agriculture and fisheries, food and beverage manufacturing, distribution, stores, and food service and drinking places for the six New England states. Rhode Island generated about $12 billion in sales in 2017, equal to a little more than 6% of the regional total of $190 billion. In 2017, wholesaling, which includes all of the types of food distribution, was the biggest generator of sales, followed by stores, and restaurants.

Data sources: Data analysis by Kavet, Rockler and Associates for New England Feeding New England. At this detailed level of analysis, the choice of data sources that are consistent across all the sectors for U.S. states is limited to the Economic Census conducted every five years by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Food System Sales by Sector, 2017

This chart has interactive tabs!
Click each tab on the left for more information.

Food services and drinking places—restaurants and bars—generated about $3 billion in sales in 2017. Full-service restaurants (sit-down restaurants) and limited-service restaurants (fast food) accounted for the majority of food services sales.

Supermarket sales accounted for the majority—about 79%— of retail food sales. Direct sales from farms are equal to less than 1% of retail food sales.

Animal slaughtering and processing accounted for about 30% of food and beverage manufacturing sales, followed by “other food manufacturing,” a catchall category that covers all kinds of snacks and processed food, and bakeries.

Data sources: U.S. Census Bureau Economic Census.

Economic Impact of Food System Sales, 2017

An economic impact tool called IMPLAN was used by New England Feeding New England researchers to estimate the total economic impact of food system sales throughout Rhode Island’s economy – nearly $23 billion. The original, direct value of $11.9 billion in sales in 2017 was augmented by nearly $10.7 billion in additional sales due to business-to-business transactions and household spending.

Data sources: Data analysis by Kavet, Rockler and Associates for New England Feeding New England. At this detailed level of analysis, the choice of data sources that are consistent across all the sectors for U.S. states is limited to the Economic Census conducted every five years by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Data sources: Data analysis by Kavet, Rockler and Associates for New England Feeding New England. At this detailed level of analysis, the choice of data sources that are consistent across all the sectors for U.S. states is limited to the Economic Census conducted every five years by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Food System Employment and Businesses Compared to Total Employment

Over the past 20 years, food system employment made up about 10-12% of total employment (and 6% of all businesses in Rhode Island).

Both employment and the number of businesses in Rhode Island have generally increased, with dips experienced during the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture. Note: This dashboard does not include number of farms.

Food System Employment by Category

Food system employment in Rhode Island increased from about 53,000 in 2002 to about 73,000 in 2022. Restaurants (30%), fast food (14%), grocery stores (13%), and “snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars (e.g., coffee shops, 9%), accounted for about 70% of food system employment. Note that farmers and hired farm workers are not counted here for methodological reasons.

Restaurants (15%), farms (14%), and fast food places (11%) make up the top food system businesses, followed by fishing businesses (Fishing businesses are mostly sole-proprietors).

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture.

Restaurants and Bars Employment

Food services and drinking places—all types of restaurants, caterers, bars, and vending machine operators—account for about 65% of food system jobs in Rhode Island. Jobs in this category increased from 37,485 in 2002, to 45,668 in 2018. Data for snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars (e.g., coffee shops) was missing in 2019, and then the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted food service workers in 2020. From 2018 to 2020, over 10,000 Rhode Island food service workers, particularly at full-service restaurants, lost their jobs. Employment has subsequently increased in 2022 as COVID restrictions have been removed.

The number of food service businesses in Rhode Island increased from 3,223 in 2002, to 3,989 in 2022.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture.

Grocery Store Employment

For reasons that are not obvious in the data source, employment at supermarkets and other grocery stores dramatically increased from 2006 to 2007. From 2007 onward, more than 12,000 people have been employed at grocery and liquor stores.

The total number of grocery stores in Rhode Island has essentially stayed at 1,000 stores over the past 20 years. However, as depicted on the Low Income/Low Access Census Tracts by Race, 2019 dashboard, while 29% of Rhode Islanders are Hispanic, Black, Asian, two or more races, or Indigenous, 51% of residents of census tracts identified as having low access to grocery stores were BIPOC (i.e., not White).

Note: data for “warehouse clubs and supercenters” is not reported for Rhode Island, which does not have any Costco or Sam’s Club stores.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture.

Food and Beverage Manufacturing Employment

Food and beverage manufacturing employment steadily increased from 3,928 in 2002, to 4,931 in 2022. Food and beverage manufacturing jobs are generally desirable because they tend to pay more than retail food jobs. Manufactured local food products, like Tilted Barn Brewery or Brickley’s Ice Cream, also contribute to the brand recognition of the state. The number of food and beverage manufacturing businesses in Rhode Island increased from 259 in 2002, to 379 in 2022.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture.

Food Distribution Employment

United Natural Foods (UNFI), based in Providence, is the largest publicly traded wholesale distributor of natural, organic, healthy, and specialty food in the country – and is consequently a major employer in Rhode Island. Food distribution employment increased from 2,281 in 2002, to 3,357 in 2022. The number of food distribution businesses increased from 346 in 2002, to 466 in 2022.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture.

Food Production Employment

Estimating food production employment and businesses is challenging. The Census of Agriculture, conducted every five years, identifies the number of farms, producers, and hired farm workers. The New England Field Office of the USDA National Statistics Service supplies estimated values for the intervening years. It is also the case that most Rhode Island farmers have another job that contributes to household income. Employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the various state departments of labor is available every year, but it rarely captures employment information for businesses without a payroll. This means that most, but not all, farm and fishing businesses are not included in their employment estimates. Nonemployer data for businesses with no employees is also available every year, and this is where our best guess for fishery employment and businesses come from.

Taken together, available data sources suggest that more than 4,000 people are employed in food production (over 1,900 in fishing and support activities, and more than 3,000 as farmers and hired farm workers). And there are more than 2,200 food production businesses, including farms and fishing operations.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics; U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture.

Farm Employment

The Census of Agriculture, conducted every 5 years, captures detailed information about agricultural activity in each county and state. The total number of people working on farms exceeded 3,000 in 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2022. Employment is nearly evenly divided between farm operators (i.e., farmers) and hired farm workers.

Data sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Census of Agriculture https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/

URI Agriculture Job Estimates, 2012

To highlight the complexity of estimating food production jobs in Rhode Island, Dr. Tom Sproul (University of Rhode Island) found that official data sources significantly underestimated the number of jobs. By his estimate, using surveys, Sproul found at least 2,630 jobs in the agriculture sector in Rhode Island in 2012.

The biggest job generator was Greenhouse/Nursery/Floriculture (47.6%), followed by crop production (29.5%), animal production (13.9%), and lesser numbers for aquaculture, grape vineyards, support activities for animal production (e.g., hay fields), farm machinery and equipment sales, and farm management.

Data sources: Dr. Thomas W. Sproul, February 1, 2015, The Economic Impact of Rhode Island Plant-Based Industries and Agriculture: An Update to the 2012 Study.

Median Hourly Wages for Rhode Island Occupations

This chart has interactive tabs!
Click each tab on the left for more information.

Wage data is collected for nearly 800 occupations by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Median hourly wages—and the spread of wages around the median—are depicted for all major occupational categories in Rhode Island. At a median hourly wage of $13.94, food preparation and serving workers—the largest category of employment in Rhode Island’s food system—have the lowest wages of any occupational category!

Median hourly wages for several food preparation and serving occupations are lower than all livable wage estimates for Rhode Island.

Data sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. Dr. Amy Glasmeier, Living Wage Calculator, MIT.

Rhode Island Per Capita Food Expenditures

Rhode Island had the fifth highest per capita food expenditures ($5,606) of any state in the country in 2020. In 2011, food purchased for consumption away from home (i.e., eating at restaurants or fast food) began to exceed food purchased for consumption at home (i.e., grocery stores). Food expenditures equaled 6.0% of median household incomes in 1997 ($56,111) and 7.0% in 2020 ($80,175).

Data sources: USDA Food Expenditure Series.