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Monday, January 10, 2011

Sprouts Farmers Market to Open Second Northern California Store in Roseville No Later Than Mid-April

Shoppers packed the Sprouts Farmers Market store, above, in Sunnyvale, California on grand opening day, June 2, 2010. The store is Sprouts' first in Northern California. It's also the grocer's milestone 50th store.

Phoenix, Arizona-based Sprouts Farmers Market, which we've reported (here) is in talks to acquire the Henry's Farmers Market chain from its owners, Apollo Global Management/Smart & Final, plans to open its second store in Northern California no later than mid-April of this year, Fresh & Easy Buzz has learned. The grocer hasn't yet announced the store's opening date.

The store, which we've reported on and written about previously, is in the Stanford Ranch shopping center in Roseville, California, which is in the Sacramento, California metropolitan area.

Sprouts is renovating a vacant building in the center, which previously was home to a Linens N' Things home furnishings soft goods store, for what will be its second farmers market-style format, natural and organic products-focused grocery store in the Northern California region.

Sprouts Farmers Market opened its first store in Northern California, a 30,865 square-foot market at 111 E. El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, on June 2, 2010. Sunnyvale is in the famed Silicon Valley, near San Jose, in the South Bay Area region. [See - June 5, 2010: Sprouts Farmers Market Opens First Northern California Store in Sunnyvale; Strikes Up Partnership With Local Non-Profit Farm

As we've previously reported, Sprouts has a third location, in the East Bay Area city of Dublin, which it also hopes to open in 2011.

The grocery chain is also searching for numerous additional store sites throughout Northern California, putting a focus on the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento metropolitan region.

Timing is key

The timing of the early-to-mid April opening of the Sprouts Farmers Market store in Roseville co-insides with the opening date of Boulder, Colorado-based Sunflower Farmers Market's first Northern California store, which just happens to be in Roseville. The Sunflower Farmers Market stores are very similar in format and customer-positioning (not to mention name) to Sprouts Farmers Market.

The Sunflower Farmers Market store in Roseville is set to open in early 2011, according to CEO Mike Gilliland. [See - December 7, 2010: Sunflower Farmers Market Confirms Our Report It's Headed to Northern California; Roseville Store to Open April 2011 and December 9, 2010: Launching Sunflower Farmers Market Into Northern California is a 'Second Act' of Sorts For Founder-CEO Mike Gilliland.]

Like Sprouts, Sunflower Farmers Market has plans to open numerous stores in Northern California. Also like Sprouts Farmers Market, Sunflower is focusing its search for additional Northern California store locations in the Sacramento metropolitan and San Francisco Bay Area regions.

Henry's makes three - maybe

Smart & Final-owned Henry's Farmers Market, which opened its first store in Northern California at 8211 Laguna Boulevard in Elk Grove near Roseville in August 2010, has also been considering opening a store in Roseville. However, in light of the current negotiations between Sprouts Farmers Market and Henry's owners, private equity firm Apollo Global Management/Smart & Final, we can't report at this time that those plans remain in consideration.

Henry's Farmers Market currently has a proposal for a second Northern California store before the planning commission in Walnut Creek, California, which is in the Easy Bay Area, not far from Dublin, where Sprouts' planned third Northern California store is located. As far as we've been able to learn, those plans are still going forward at Henry's.

The planned Walnut Creek Henry's location would be a perfect fit for Sprouts Farmers Market, should the grocer's talks to acquire Henry's Farmers Market, which continue to go on this week, result in the privately-held, Arizona-based chain's buying Henry's.

New stores 'sprouting' up all over the region

The Sacramento region, including Roseville, is set to see an influx of new food retailing players and grocery stores this year, and into 2012.

In addition to new arrivals Sprouts, Henry's Farmers Market (summer 2010), which could soon be a combined Sprouts-Henry's, and Sunflower Farmers Market (in April), Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market currently has over 20 planned store sites in the Sacramento region (see our list here.) [Also see - November 22, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Plans Five New Stores in Northern California's Sacramento Region.]

Tesco's Fresh & Easy plans to open its first 12 stores in Northern California (none of the 12 are in the Sacramento region though) starting in March-April of this year. (click here for additional details on Fresh & Easy in Northern California.)

However, based on our most recent information, we don't expect the Tesco-owned fresh food and grocery chain to open any of its Sacramento-area stores until, at the earliest, late 2011. And it's possible the first stores in the region won't open until early 2012. [See - December 27, 2010: First Look at the Pacifica, California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store, One of the First Opening in Northern California in Early 2011 and December 14, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Open 5800 Third Street 'Flagship' Store in San Francisco Later in 2011 Than Originally Announced.

Additionally, Whole Foods Market, which has a store in Roseville and one in Sacramento, plans to open its third store in the Sacramento metro region this year, in Folsom.

Whole Foods is also scouting for additional store sites in the Sacramento region as part of a major new store growth initiative for Northern California, which its been undertaking for a few years, and accelerated in 2009-2010. [See - May 9, 2010: A Whopping 15 of Whole Foods Market's 41 New Stores in Development are in California - And Nine of The 15 Are In Northern CA

Further, as we reported earlier today, Walmart is close to acquiring its first smaller-format store location in Northern California, at Highway 65 and Second Street in the city of Lincoln, which is near Sacramento, and has plans to grab additional sites in the Sacramento region for the small-supermarket-style food and grocery stores. [See - January 10, 2011: Walmart 'Gets Real' With Smaller-Format Grocery Store Initiative in California; First Stores On Tap.]

One of the numerous Sacramento-area Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store sites is in Lincoln. Additionally, Tesco has two future Fresh & Easy stores planned for Elk Grove, where Henry's Farmers Market opened its Northern California flagship store in August 2010. [See - August 17, 2010: Henry's Farmers Market 'Beats' Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to Northern California Despite Multi-Year Head Start; Elk Grove Store Opens Tomorrow.]

Add to the mix popular discount retailer Target Corp., which is focusing aggressively on the Sacramento region with its "P-Fresh" food and grocery store initiative in Northern California. Target currently has "P-Fresh" grocery markets in 12 of its discount format stores in the Sacramento area, including in Elk Grove, Roseville and Lincoln, and has plans to add the markets inside additional general merchandise stores in the region this year. [See our September 26, 2010 story for details on Target's "P-Fresh" in Northern California: While Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Postponed, Target Opened 42 'P-Fresh' Fresh Food and Grocery Markets in Northern California.]

Locally-based and family-owned supermarket chain Raley's, which has its corporate headquarters in West Sacramento, California, is the market share leader in the Sacramento region, followed by another family-owned chain, Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supermarkets, which operates supermarkets under its Lucky banner and discount warehouse stores under its FoodMaxx banner in the region. Safeway Stores, Inc., which is headquartered in the East Bay Area city of Pleasanton, about 90 minutes from Sacramento, is a close third in market share rankings in the Sacramento metro market, although its number one in all of Northern California.

Raley's, which has 134 stores and about $3.4 billion in annual sales, operates stores under the Raley's (super stores), Bel-Air (supermarkets) and Food Source (discount warehouse stores) in the Sacramento market region.

Sprouts' 'sprouting' new stores

Sprouts Farmers Market, which has 54 stores in Arizona, Colorado, California and Texas, currently has five new stores set to open this year. More new locations are set to be announced later this year.

In addition to the Roseville, California Sprouts market opening in April 2011, the four other announced new stores set to open this year are in Southern California - Westlake Village and Redondo Beach - and Texas - Fort Worth and Carrollton.

The Forth Worth store, which is at 4650 SW Loop 820 in the Overton Park Plaza shopping center, is set to open this month, on Wednesday, January 26.

Of course, if the discussions with Apollo Global Management/Smart & Final over acquiring the 46-store Henry's Farmers Market chain result in a deal for Sprouts Farmers Market, the Arizona-based chain, owned by members of the Boney family, the same family that started the Henry's chain, will nearly double its store count to over 100 units.

The Henry's Farmers Market stores are in California and Texas. The California stores - 36 in Southern California and one unit in Northern California - operate under the Henry's Farmers Market banner. The nine stores in Texas are under the Sun Harvest Farmers Market banner.

Meanwhile, regardless of which direction the deal negotiations end up going - they're looking positive for a deal right now, according to our sources - regarding a possible Henry's Farmers Market acquisition by Sprouts, the Arizona-base chain plans to continue to grow its store-count significantly in Northern and Southern California, along with in Texas (current major focus, along with California), Arizona and Colorado - plus potentially adding a couple new Western U.S. states - over the next few years.

Reader Resource

>Read our 2010 'Northern California Market Region Special Report' series here for a current primer on food and grocery retailing in the region. See the numerous linked stories at the end of the piece at the link.

2 comments:

  1. Where will the store in Redondo Beach be located (address)?

    ReplyDelete
  2. on Hawthorne Blvd next to the South Bay Galleria. Where the bowling alley and Theaters used to be.

    ReplyDelete