[Tagging] Greengrocer vs grocery vs shop=food?

Joseph Eisenberg joseph.eisenberg at gmail.com
Sun Oct 7 02:33:36 UTC 2018


The team at OpenStreetMap Carto (the "Standard" map style shown on top at
the main openstreetmap.org page) is considering rendering shop=food. This
tag has not yet been approved and only has a stub wiki page
<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:shop%3Dfood/>, but it's usage has
climbed over 2k on taginfo
<https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/shop=food>. Taginfo shows it is
used in England and the USA, but it seems more popular in Central Europe,
Japan and the Phillipines. I couldn’t find info on combinations used.

There are a number of similar shop types in use: shop=health_food,
shop=general, shop=convenience, shop=supermarket, shop=bakery, shop=deli.

There is also shop=grocery, also not approved but it does have a more
complete wiki description.

I checked overpass turbo in London, New York, and San Franciso. The latter
had no uses; London has the most. The first few shop=food on the list are

1. “Nana’s Deli“,
2. “The Chelsea Cake Shop”,
3. “Green Apple”
4. “Holland And Barrett”

Those should be 1. shop=deli, 2. shop=bakery, 3. shop=greengrocer(?).  The
fourth sells vitamis, herbal supplements and "health food", so could be
shop=health_food. Farther down the list are a few shops with description
“Bulgarian Food” and another “African and Zim food”, so could be specialty
grocers, I haven’t confirmed

In New York, overpass turbo shows:
1 “Busy Bee” note=Polish,
2 “Whole Foods Market”
3 “Caputo’s Fine Foods”

According to Google, #1 is a grocery store, #2 is a supermarket,  #3 is an
Italian Deli and grocer

So this tag isn't very specific yet.

But I do see the need for a way to tag specialty grocers (which sell mainly
non-perishable food items), small groceries that are not greengrocers or
convenience shops, and shops selling food times as well as a mix of general
merchandise.

The wiki page for shop=general suggests it is "the only shop for
kilometers", but in my town in Indonesia there are many shops that would
otherwise qualify, because they sell groceries along with other essentials
and some random hardware items. Others are more specifically grocery shops,
but do not qualify as a supermarket or convenciene shop.

In British English usage, would shop=grocery or shop=food be more
appropriate for these shorts of shops? They are probably not very common in
England, but may be found in developing countries and perhaps in small
towns without a supermarket.

-Joseph
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