You asked
We are currently investigating in more detail the UK grocery market and trying to define & capture the number of stores selling grocery. Within this framework we would to ask whether you have information on the number of the grocery stores operating and if you use any specific definitions for their types (i.e. traditional grocery stores, ethnic grocery stores etc.)
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request regarding grocery stores in the UK. Grocery stores are classified to UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007) 47.11 - Retail sale in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating. In 2015 there were 30,680 businesses registered for VAT and/or PAYE in this classification.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide a breakdown to include traditional grocery stores and/or ethnic grocery stores. I have included a link below to the datasets used to produce our UK Business: Activity, Size and Location publication. These contain the data, for 2015, broken down by region, employment and turnover sizebands: http://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/ukbusinessactivitysizeandlocation/2015-10-06/relateddata