Grocery stores are adapting to more male shoppers

More men are heading to the supermarket these days.

That’s according to a new survey by Men’s Health, which found that 84 percent of men are now the primary grocery shoppers in their households, marking a 19 percent increase from a decade ago.

The results “challenge many gender stereotypes related to food shopping and cooking,” said Chris Peel, publisher of Men’s Health. “Men have an active role in each stage of the food purchasing process — before getting to the store, while there and when cooking the food they’ve bought.”

It is worth noting that Men’s Health surveyed only men. Other surveys of both men and women have concluded that women continue to do slightly more of the country’s food-buying: NPD Group, for example, estimates that men are the primary grocery shoppers in 41 percent of U.S. households, while market research firm VideoMining puts that figure at about 49 percent of shoppers.

In any case, there is mounting evidence that more men are shopping for groceries than in