D.C.-based app OurStreets Supplies has been collecting reports from users about their shopping experiences at local grocery stores during the pandemic. Using information from more than 5,000 user reports in the D.C. region over the last three weeks, OurStreets ranked the local stores that were the best—and worst—for social distancing.

Only stores that received 50 reports or more were counted on the list. Stores with multiple locations across the region were combined. For example, Trader Joe’s score accounts for all reports from the store’s regional locations.

OurStreets founder Mark Sussman thinks combining the reports is a better indicator of which companies are doing the best job of creating good social distancing conditions across the board.

“I wanted to be fair to certain businesses—like a Yes Organic [Market], for example, may have one very troubled, problematic location. But then looking at the seven or eight locations they have across the city, they actually have a very decent score,” Sussman says.

All told, there are 160 stores and 540 locations represented in the data.

Here are the top five, ranked by the percentage of users who reported they were able to safely social distance while shopping:

Top 5 stores for social distancing

The bottom five, again ranked by percentage of users who reported they were able to safely social distance while shopping:

Bottom 5 stores for social distancing

Sussman notes it’s important to pay attention to the size of the grocery store when looking at which stores are doing best at social distancing. Some stores, he says, are trying hard to keep customers safe, but can only do so much because of small store footprints.

Both top and bottom rankings have stores of different sizes: Trader Joe’s and Open Door Market, for example, generally have fairly small store footprints, but they still score well in terms of good social distancing—at least according to OurStreets users.

The number of reports OurStreets users submitted also varied by store size, with large stores like Walmart or Target receiving the highest number of reports (65 percent of the overall total). Medium-sized stores like Trader Joe’s or Streets Market and smaller ones like Union Kitchen or Open Door Market trailed behind, at 27 percent and 7 percent of the reports, respectively.

The social distancing rankings don’t take into account the times users visited stores and submitted reports. But Sussman and his team are seeing some patterns emerge around when people are shopping.

“We can see people are shopping on the weekends just like they always are. But we’re certainly seeing spikes at lunch time during the weekday and in the evenings as well,” in addition to an increase in reports before 9 a.m. Eastern time, he says.

But Sussman acknowledges that the social distancing data is all a bit subjective.

“It’s very much in the eye of the beholder as to whether or not you feel safe shopping at that store,” he says.

But he believes that the picture will become more accurate as more users contribute. Currently, only a small percentage of users who are using the app to search for information are also submitting reports themselves.

OurStreets Supplies launched in late March. The app asks users to report what items they were looking for on their shopping trip and whether they were ultimately available, too.

Across the board, most of the reports indicate that shoppers were looking for toilet paper. “Toilet paper is king at the end of the day,” Sussman says.

Users reported success finding fresh produce, dairy, meat and bread. Items that were reported “not available” included toilet paper, hand sanitizer, flour, disinfecting wipes and paper towels.

OurStreets is also working with non-traditional suppliers, like restaurants or other establishments, to have them submit reports about their own inventories in the app. That means a consumer searching for flour in the app might find a restaurant offering it for sale listed alongside major grocery stores. Restaurants and other businesses have increasingly decided to offer grocery items or cleaning supplies for sale to customers.

Sussman says OurStreets added categories for flour, cleaning wipes and paper towels to the app on Friday, after overwhelming user demand for information about where to find them.

“Users responded by reporting them in force,” Sussman wrote in an email. “Not surprisingly, they weren’t able to find any.”

This story originally appeared on WAMU.<