Dollar General is expanding in rural Midwest, presenting a threat to small-town grocery stores

A fire destroyed their local grocery store in 2008, but people in this Woodbury County town of 1,600 pooled their money to rebuild.Now the town is again in danger of losing the store it worked to keep. The owner said a third of his sales dried up when a new competitor, Dollar General, came to town, and the grocery might not survive.The dollar store chain, with its towering shelves of inexpensive household goods and packaged foods, is shaking up the retail marketplace in small towns like Moville across Nebraska and Iowa as it expands into places too small to show up on other retailers’ radars.Many shoppers embrace the newcomer, saying it brings competition, new products and variety at prices they can afford.Others worry about what it will do to the local store, Chet’s Foods. If Chet’s closes, they’d have to make the 40-mile round trip to Sioux City to find the selection of fresh meat, dairy, produce and other grocery items that Chet’s offers.“We’re so lucky to have this store, I don’t ever want to lose it,” said Jeannie Crick, buying milk and lettuce at Chet’s. But like others who support Chet’s, Crick said she’s shopped at Dollar General, too.Store owner Chet Davis says people don’t realize how precarious the grocery store’s business is, how tight grocery store profit margins are or how most of his costs — such as utilities and insurance — stay the same no matter how many packs of steaks or stalks of broccoli he sells.