Eco-safe and play-tastic to imagination infinity — let’s get shopping for a wooden grocery store playset to match your toddler’s personality.
Exploring those little imaginations, learning how to play with other people, and some good-ole fashioned number crunching — a grocery shopping spree is a great activity for any toddler!
But which grocery playset is right for your little one? I’ve curated an all-natural wooden grocery play collection for you — check out these top 8 best of the best.
Because it’s 2021 — “wood” means modern design, child-safe, environmentally sound, and durable playability.
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Don’t forget the shopping list!
Before you head to the grocery store — you’ll need to know what to look for.
For busy families, here’s your fast track to finding your toddler-perfect wooden grocery store.
- (01) Melissa & Doug Grocery Store is the world’s most highly-rated wooden grocery supermarket playset.
- (02) Janod Green Market stands as tall as a toddler for good posture — both “eco-green” and “color green”.
- (03) Svan Store Wooden Farmers Market Stand has a rustic farm-to-table feel and the equipment to make it feel like the real thing.
- (04) Le Toy Van Honeybee Wooden Market Play Shop has adorable wooden apples and pears — plus that Honeybee signature style.
- (05) KidKraft Wooden Marketplace Toy is the tallest of the bunch at a staggering 48” inches — the best pick for toddlers to big kids.
- (06) “Best Choice Products” Grocery Store Play Center is a skeptical generic brand but has the only working Conveyor of the bunch.
- (07) Teamson Kids Grocery Stand is built with a wide-table design — ideal for two toddlers playing with one another.
- (08) Melissa & Doug Wooden Hybrid Grocery Store & Lemonade Stand is a real-working lemonade stand for the baby entrepreneur.
Looking for a grocery cart to match? We wrote a full review of the best wooden shopping carts for toddlers & babies.
3 Reasons To Love Grocery Store Role Play
Pretend play is all sorts of healthy for your child’s overall development!
The technical term is “sociodramatic play” — where kids role-play what they see other people do in the world around them.
Sociodramatic play is where children act out imaginary situations and stories, become different characters and pretend they are in different locations and times.
Victoria Government Education & Training Center
You bet — it’s an important part of every child’s upbringing. And here’s 3 important reasons why!
Language & Social Skills
To develop your child’s social and communication skills — there’s no better way than pretend play! A trip to the market includes all kinds of social interactions along the way. Before you go, you ask your family what to purchase. While you’re there, you ask a clerk where to find a certain item. Before heading back home, you exchange money and communicate with the cashier, bag up your groceries, and go home ready to cook.
Practical Math
Buying and selling things is by and large the most common way adults use their math skills — several times every single day. Why not get your little one a jumpstart on life skills they’re going to need to learn someday? Plus bonus problem-solving abilities — like when you only have so much money, and you need to prepare a meal with what you have.
Screen-Free Non-Sedentary Play
Albeit it’s probably true — 20 years from now, our kids will buy all their groceries online. (New technology these days — am I right?) That doesn’t mean it’s good to keep your kid glued to a screen in the meantime. By inviting a pretend play environment into your home — that’s a full-sized activity where toddlers will stand, sit, crawl, kneel, stretch, and use their bodies in all kinds of ways!
Best Wooden Grocery Stores For Toddlers & Kids
(01) Melissa & Doug Freestanding Wooden Fresh Mart Grocery Store
The world’s most popular wood grocery store pretend playset — in true supermarket-style.
What kid has never been to Walmart, Target, or another superstore?
Here’s the world’s most popular wooden supermarket playset — for your child to play grocery store checkout exactly like they do at the real thing.
Yep, that’s the Melissa & Doug grocery store you were looking for.
With over 5,000 5-star reviews (at the time of writing) — that many happy toddler shoppers just can’t be wrong!
Mellissa and Dog’s offers one of the most modern cash registers on the list. It’s got a real working register tray — and credit card swiping station too. How cool is that?!
Plus — all the play cash your child will need for a week’s worth of groceries.
With a variety of different size and shape cupboards and compartments — you’re kid’s fine motor and organizational skills are going to get a workout. They’ll be putting away pretend groceries just like mommy and daddy do in the kitchen.
Need more food to stock?
With Melissa & Doug — you’ve got a complete spectrum of wooden produce play crates to choose from (sold separately).
(02) Janod Green Market Wooden Grocery Stand (Full-Sized Toddler Height)
Standing as tall as your toddler, this toddler grocery stand is as “eco-green” as it is “color green”.
At 38” tall — here’s a really good pick if you want your toddler to play standing up.
Some grocery store sets on the list are smaller, and best played with on tabletop. Here’s one that goes directly on the floor for full-height grocery play.
And that’s one great reason to get Janod’s.
And we haven’t even gotten to the imaginative cash register, weigh scale, and wall-mounting clock — all included in this well-equipped supermarket playset.
At a height that supports good posture, it’s good to know the set includes a fully functional blackboard for your child to write the price!
(Groceries just keep getting more and more expensive don’t they?!)
Need some chalk? Here are our top picks for the best indoor and outdoor toddler chalk.
(03) Svan Store Wooden Farmers Market Stand (With Fruit & Cash Register)
Look to the Svan Store brand for a wood-a-plenty natural frame in outdoor Farmers Market style.
As a kid-sized version of a fully-stocked produce stand — recommended for ages 3 and up — the set includes over 30 pieces of fruit and vegetables — a chalkboard and that oh-so-important cash register!
Buying and selling the farm-to-fresh harvest is half the fun! Cash registers come highly recommended for practical learning through pretend play!
Get your organic shopping bag ready! (Don’t worry, there’s a kid-friendly shopping bag included too.)
Svan Store’s reasonably priced play grocery store marketplace brings all the fun of a real Sunday-at-noon farmers market right into your playroom.
(04) Le Toy Van Honeybee Wooden Market Play Shop Set (With Wooden Apples & Shopping Bag)
Long-lasting and sustainable — and part of a greater Honeybee & Honeybake collection of kids grocery play gear.
If this is your first time seeing a piece from the Honeybee collection — welcome to pretend play paradise!
With a signature red and teal color palette — Le Toy Van’s Honeybee toys take a minimalist approach to all things toddler pretend play.
It’s ideal for playing supermarket, bakery, corner store, or cafe — and makes a great gift for the little one in your life with all the images.
Let Toy Van brand’s toys toddler grocery store is made from repurposed rubberwood trees. An excellent wood selection — both long-lasting and sustainable.
For boys and girls 3 years and up both to love — so what do you say? Does Honeybee speak to you?
The set comes with one bushel of green and red wooden play apples. You can get matching Le Toy Van kids grocery crates — like fish, meats, dairy, and baked goods — to get ready and stock up for your customers!
And don’t forget the fabric shopping bag — that’ll teach your little one to stay sustainable starting at an early age.
(05) KidKraft Bright-Color Wooden Marketplace Toy (48” Tall With Cash Register)
A beautifully bold-colored all-purpose play marketplace for toddlers ages 3 and up.
48 inches tall — it’s even taller than the Janod. Made of sturdy wooden construction that means it’s a toy that’ll get played with for years — from age 3 to about 8.
Below the shopkeeper’s station, there are six perfectly organize compartments — each with a built-in individual chalkboard to write the name of the produce plus the price!
Getting practice with numbers and writing is an activity parents take when they can get it — am I right?
It comes with a brightly-colored children’s cash register that opens, closes, keeps pretend cash, and swipes pretend credit cards — all in one.
Starting to sound like exactly how to make a pretend grocery store into an educational counting and number crunching activity!
(06) “Best Choice Products” Grocery Store Play Center (With Working Conveyor)
A generic brand, but fully-stocked grocery set with lots to explore.
“Best Choice Products” brand is not a brand I’ve heard of before — and likely an Asian factory and some skepticism whether or not it’s actually the best choice product.
That said — this fully-stocked grocery set has got it all!
For a complete play experience — here’s a set with over 40 unique accessories. Everything from fruits and veggies, to point-of-sale equipment, to a cash register checkout station, to a real moving checkout conveyer belt.
And one downside — the fruits and veggies are made of plastic.
One thing’s for sure. If you get a grocery store play center like this for your little one — with so many accessories to explore — they’ll get tons of playtime and a fully immersive play shopping experience.
Welcome to the Fresh Market — where your toddler will learn to keep the house well-stocked as mom and dad do.
(07) Teamson Kids Two-Sided Cashier Play Grocery Stand (Wide-Table Design)
Tons of tablespace for two toddlers to learn about practical life skills through endless hours of fun.
What I love about Teamson Kids brand’s grocery store stand is — they made a wide-angle play space that is ideal for two toddlers to interact together.
One person plays the cashier. One person plays the role of the customer. And I hope you didn’t leave baby in the car!
With tons of added table space, two children have plenty of room to take items out of the grocery card and up ready for sale — then pack up the groceries for a trip to the car.
What may sound like a routine trip to the store for parents — is for kids a way to learn responsibility and independence. Not to mention develop communication skills when playing together with their friends or siblings.
(08) Melissa & Doug Wooden Hybrid Grocery Store & Lemonade Stand (For Toddler-Preneurs)
A real-working lemonade stand that doubles as a pretend grocery.
We started the list with Melissa & Doug’s most popular pretend play grocery shop — and now it’s on to their most “sweet and sour” Lemonade extravaganza!
The reversible awning switches between “Lemonade Stand” and “Grocery Store” — so your child gets even more play variety from just one set.
The front includes 9 plastic bins — not the most eco-friendly, but great for running a real-life lemonade stand, where you’ve gotta wash the lemons and keep the area food-safe.
For grocery play — Melissa & Doug offers a booster pack of pretend play canned foods you can buy for just a little more than the basic set.
To hardworking parents and kids!
Cheers for all you do to keep the household in working order — and raise amazing kids with colorful childhood experiences!
I hope you found the right wooden grocery store for your toddler today!
For years of smiles and giggles and fun-filled shopping sprees.
