SALISBURY – Food Lion was rated the most popular grocery store in North Carolina, according to a new survey by 24/7 Wall Street.

To rank grocery stores in each state, the news site used a combination of data from Yelp and Google Trends.

The store with the highest search frequency on Google Trends in a given state was listed as the most popular grocery store in that state.

There are nearly 500 Food Lion stores across the state.The company is headquartered in Salisbury.

Of the more than 36,000 grocery stores in the United States, some are small, independent stores or specialty outlets that focus on groceries from a certain area. Americans tend to buy most of their food at large regional or national chains, according to research.

Regional chains like Hy-Vee, Albertsons or Publix may be staples in some parts of the country but they are unknown in others.