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How will you shop for groceries in 2010?

"Today" food editor Phil Lempert looks at the time- and money-saving options stores will need to offer consumers in order to stay ahead.

What do rising gas prices, aging baby boomers and a growing ethnically diverse population have in common? They are all factors driving trends in food’s ever-changing landscape. With less disposable income, specialized needs and fewer minutes to spare, we shoppers will be increasingly on the hunt for unique, cheap and easy-to-find foods.

Club stores (like Costco), dollar stores, and supercenters (like Wal-Mart) have had a huge impact on prices at retail across many different formats, forcing other retailers to offer more competitive prices to compete for the value-oriented customers. This is sending a clear message to grocery stores: Go big, go value, go niche or go away. And while niche suppliers like Whole Foods do well among its targeted demographic (singles and higher earners), there are more areas of the country that can support value retailers than can support the likes of Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

The influx of diverse ethnic groups is changing the retail landscape, too. Kroger, for example, is opening a series of Hispanic-influenced stores that offer more Central and South American ingredients. Another influential factor is the aging population. As more people age, they will be looking to buy products to help them live longer — like vitamins, minerals, medicines and fiber. This is a perfect model of how retailers can cater to the needs of specific pockets of the population with positive results. Drug retailers Walgreens and CVS are winning today thanks to their strong focus on the older demographic.

Improvements in technology will also play a crucial role in retail in the next few years, as consumers seek out experiences that can both keep cash in their wallets and time on their clocks. RFID chips will likely be more widely applied (enabling self-check out facilities to be greatly simplified), and personal shopping devices that speed up and/or organize a trip (like phones and iPods) will become more common. In store advertising will go more digital, while e-mails and text messages about sales will replace mail flyers and coupons. Once reserved for the wealthy, valet parking will become the norm — not the exception.

But for our traditional stores to survive these changes it will take foresight, and a willingness to go above and beyond existing strategies to keep us happy and shopping. You can also expect to see a reinvention of store brands, which many predict could become so important that one in five products we buy will be the store’s own label.

Bottom line is that grocery shopping is stressful for most people. Our lifestyles are more rushed and hectic than they’ve ever been; and for us to be loyal to a particular store, they will have to satisfy our needs for fun, value, convenience and most of all a pleasant shopping experience.

Phil Lempert is food editor of the “Today” show. He welcomes questions and comments, which can be sent to phil.lempert@nbc.com or by using the mail box below. For more about the latest trends on the supermarket shelves, visit Phil’s Web site at .