Grocer-Entrepreneur, Sunflower Farmers Market Founder & CEO Mike Gilliland Honored By Hometown Chamber of Commerce

Mike Gilliland poses in the produce department of a Sunflower Farmers Market store. Fresh produce is front and center and featured in the stores - and Gilliland likes it that way. In fact, don't be surprised if you run into the founder and CEO pictured above while shopping in one of the 30 Sunflower stores. The stores, especially the big produce departments, are one of his favorite places to be, along with his 40-acre farm in Colorado, where much of the produce raised is sold in those very produce departments, at the Colorado stores.

As he prepares to take his fast-growing, fresh produce-focused, combination natural/organic and conventional grocery chain into Northern California, Sunflower Farmers Market founder, CEO and chairman Mike Gilliland has just received an honor from his hometown Chamber of Commerce in Boulder, Colorado, which recognizes the retailer's 24-years as a food and grocery industry entrepreneur, much of it spent in Boulder. Gilliland founded Sunflower Farmers Market in Boulder in 2002.

Gilliland has been selected as a 2010 Entrepreneur of Distinction by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce Esprit Awards committee. The award recognizes and celebrates the outstanding spirit of entrepreneurship in Boulder County, the Chamber said today.

Gilliland will receive his award at the 26th Annual Esprit Entrepreneur Banquet on Thursday, October 7, 2010, from 5:30 to 9:00pm in the University of Colorado’s University Memorial Center Glenn Miller Ballroom.

In addition to Gilliland's award, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce is honoring three other local entrepreneurs at the October 7 event.

"I am honored to have been chosen for this distinction," Gilliland says. "It’s terrific that the Boulder Chamber of Commerce recognizes and acknowledges the hard work and dedication of local entrepreneurs, as well as the unique challenges and opportunities that entrepreneurs face. I’m proud to be included in an event that recognizes some impressive local leaders and their indomitable spirit."

The city of Boulder, Colorado and Boulder County is a pioneering American region when it comes to the natural/organic food and grocery industry. Along with Northern California, the city of Boulder and the surrounding region has arguably spawned more industry start ups and successful natural and organic foods' companies than anywhere else in the U.S. And Gilliland, having founded and headquartered two retail chains - Sunflower Farmers Market and Wild Oats Markets - in Boulder, is a major contributor to that developement.

Sunflower Farmers Market, which Gilliland founded in 2002, remains headquartered in Boulder, as well as having some of its corporate functions in Arizona.

Gilliland also co-founded Wild Oats Markets in Boulder in 1987. He served as Wild Oats' CEO from 1987-2001, growing it from a single store to a publicly-held chain of 115 stores and about $1 billion in annual sales, when he left. Wild Oats' board, its investors, and Gilliland were all ready for a change in 2001.

In 2007, Wild Oats Markets was acquired by its chief competitor, Whole Foods Market, Inc. for $565 million, following a number of years of serious struggle, which saw Wild Oats' sales and profits plunge and its stock share price drop considerably.

When Whole Foods Market, Inc. acquired Wild Oats Markets, Inc., Wild Oats' had annual sales of about $1.2 billion and operated 110 stores in 24 U.S. states and British Columbia, Canada under the following banners: Wild Oats Marketplace, Henry's Farmers Market, Sun Harvest, and Capers Community.

Shortly after acquiring Wild Oats, Whole Foods Market sold the Henry's Farmers Market and Sun Harvest stores, which were operated as a separate chain by Wild Oats and headquartered in Irvine, California, to Southern California-based Smart & Final, which has been growing Henry's ever since. Smart & Final has kept the same independent structure for Henry's, with some centralization in areas like private brands, as well as its headquarters in Irvine, where it remains based.

Gilliland, who attended the US Air Force Academy, the University of Grenoble in France, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Colorado, didn't waste any time after leaving Wild Oats in 2001. He started Sunflower Farmers Market in 2002 and has grown the chain to 29 stores in six states - Colorado (10 stores), Arizona (7), Utah (2), New Mexico (6), Texas (3) and Las Vegas, Nevada (2) - since then.

In addition to opening numerous new stores in the six states over the next few years, Gilliland is looking to enter new markets, starting with Northern California, where he plans to open the first Sunflower Farmers Market store in early-to-mid 2011. He's also looking to Southern California and a couple other western states as new market regions in which he can open his stores, which use the slogan: Sunflower Farmers Market: 'Serious Food...Silly Prices!

[Read this related story: Sunflower Makes Three: Sunflower Farmers Market's First Northern California Store Will Be in Roseville.]

Food and grocery retailing in the U.S. is interesting and dynamic thanks in large part to entrepreneurs like Mike Gilliland and many others like him.

There's John Mackey, the co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods Market; the Wegman's and the Butts, two entrepreneurial families who've build (and still run) what pound-for-pound are arguably the two best grocery chains in America, Wegmans on the east coast and H-E-B in Texas; Bob Piccinini, majority-owner, CEO and entrepreneur-in-chief of Modesto, California-based Save Mart Supermarkets, who since taking over as president and majority-owner from his father in 1981, of what was then a 40-store local grocery chain, has built it into a regional chain of 250 stores and about $5 billion in annual sales, all the while creating thousands of good jobs and donating millions of dollars to community organizations.

Gilliland and the others noted above are just a few of the many food and grocery retailing entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial families making their respective mark in the business - and making it much more interesting, dynamic and far better for consumers and the industry itself than would be the case if it was a strictly publicly-held, big chain industry, like is the case in many developed countries.

Congratulations to Mike Gilliland. And may those grocer-entrepreneurs who've done well, like Mike Gilliland and the many others, find, nurture, motivate and support a new generation of budding grocer-entrepreneurs, so the entrepreneurial tradition in U.S. food retailing will remain alive for generations to come.

About Today's Walmart Stores, Inc. Smaller Stores Media Frenzy: We Scooped it On July 6, 2010

Fresh & Easy Buzz

July 6, 2010:
Walmart Looking for Store Sites in Northern California For 20,000 Sq-Ft Neighborhood Market by Walmart Prototype Store [Additional regions and cities mentioned in our piece.]

Others

Financial Times
September 19, 2010:
Walmart lines up sites for smaller stores

Wall Street Journal
September 19, 2010:
Wal-Mart Scouting Sites For Smaller US Stores - Report

Associated Press
September 20, 2010:
Wal-Mart to make a big push into urban markets

San Francisco Chronicle
September 21, 2010
Walmart sets sights on San Francisco

Additional Publications - click here

In the coming days, Fresh & Easy Buzz will have more to come about Walmart's smaller-format, smaller-store plans, leading up to the retailer's plans to offer more details in October at its anlaysts' meeting.

Walmart in Fresh & Easy Buzz: Suggested Reading/Linkage:

marketside by Walmart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart format innovation, Wal-Mart hybrid supercenters, Wal-Mart Marketside, Wal-Mart Modesto CA, Wal-Mart Supercenter, Wal-Mart's new Supercenter prototype, Walmart, marketside store brand, brand marketside, Walmart Stores Inc. Use the 'Older Posts' 'Newer Posts' links at the bottom of the linked pages for more pages.

New Report: How and Where Americans Spend Their Food & Grocery Dollars

The consumer and money website Bundle.com, which is backed by Microsoft, financial services company Citi and the investment firm Morningstar, has produced what it calls its first-ever Bundle Report, which is titled: "The 2010 Bundle Report: How America Spends." The comprehensive report uses data obtained from Citi, the U.S. Federal Government and third-party sources, to arrive at an analysis of how much money, excluding housing costs, the average American household spent in 2009.

As the numbers depicted in the infographic here show, the average American household spent $37,782 in 2009, not counting mortgage or rent (which are not included in the Bundle data).

In the report, Bundle.com divided the $37,782 spent in 2009 by the average American household into six categories. The six categories and the percentage of the $37,782 spent in each of them are: 23 percent of their daily budget on shopping, 14.5 percent on getting around (gas and auto expenses), 17.5 percent on food and drink, 7 percent on travel and leisure, 17 percent on house- and home-related expenses, and 21 percent on health and family.

How, where Americans spend their food & grocery dollars

Most interesting to Fresh & Easy Buzz - as well as the most useful aspect of the report for grocers and food marketers - is the analysis the Bundle.com researchers did in the food and drink category.

First, using their data, the researchers looked at the demographics of U.S. food and grocery spending overall, breaking down the percentage spent on groceries (at all food and grocery retailing classes of trade) and at restaurants (of all types and formats). The results of their analysis is depicted in the infographic here.

As you can see in the graphic, Bundle.com determined the average American family spent $3,778 in 2009 on food and groceries at retail stores, while spending $2,736 dining out. [There are additional details and links here.]

Second, the Bundle.com researchers examined consumer spending in major U.S. cities when it comes to groceries and restaurants, developing a top ranking by city.

As the infographic here shows, Austin, Texas is the number one food and drink spending city, while Detroit, Michigan is dead last. Note the stark differences between number one Austin - $12,447 total ($6,146 annually on food-groceries at retail and $6,301 dining out)compared to $2,246 total ($1,375 at retail annually and $871 dining out) for last place Detroit.

The Bundle.com researchers point out five interesting aspects of their food-grocery-drink ranking by city:

• Austin, TX, residents spend almost twice ($6,301) the US annual average for dining out.
• In fact, five average Detroit households (the nation’s lowest spenders) can eat on one Austinite’s food budget.
• If Manhattan were its own city, it would be No. 1 for food spending ($13,079) and No. 1 for share of food budget spent on restaurants (59%).
• In Atlanta, dining out accounts for 57% percent of the city’s average total food and drink spending annually, the highest in the US and 28% higher than the US average.
• Denver residents allocate 22 percent of their daily spending to food, more than any other big city in the country.

It's important to note though, and the researchers do so, that like the rest of the study the city ranking data doesn't include what the average American family spends on either a mortgage or rent. We suspect this fact accounts for why New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, for example - all places with high housing costs and rents but big food spending cities according to other data sources - aren't higher-up in the ranking. But despite this variable - the intentional omission by the researchers of the housing cost data - the study remains not only interesting but useful.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

In terms of Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, just one of the grocer's current 159 fresh food and grocery stores is located in the top 15 cities ranked in the Bundle.com study. That store is in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is ranked number nine.

Fresh & Easy has numerous stores in Orange County in Southern California but none in Irvine, which is ranked number 7 in the study. In addition, there are nearly 40 Fresh & Easy stores in Arizona but none in Tuscon, which is ranked 12th in Bundle's city ranking.

Further, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market has stores in just six of the top 50 ranked cities - Scottsdale and Chandler (ranked number 33) in Arizona; Henderson (ranked 31rst), Nevada; Los Angeles (ranked 16th) and Santa Ana (ranked 49th) in Southern California; and in Bakersfield, California (ranked 50th)

A final word: Like all such studies, this one should be used in conjunction with other food and grocery consumer purchase research and data. The reason for this is because no one study is precise. Using multiple data sources allows for a check and balance system, along with arriving at a more precise snapshot of consumer food and grocer purchase data and demographics. Having said that, in our analysis and opinion, Bundle.com's comprehensive study is a valuable tool for retailers, marketers and consumers.

Make sure in using the study you pay attention to the numerous links at the pages here, here and here. At these links are numerous other features Bundle.com provides regarding its study and data, as well as download links for the infographics presented.

The researchers describe in depth the methodology they used in the study here. We compliment the Bundle.com researchers on their work.

Food & Grocery Retailing News: A Midweek Roundup of Key News Developments in the California, Nevada and Arizona USA Market Regions

Southern CA: The Trader (Joe's) creates a top 34 List

National U.S. specialty grocery chain Trader Joe's, which is headquartered in Southern California and has numerous stores in California, Nevada and Arizona, has published a list of the 34 top-selling items in its stores. Among the items in the list include Mandarin orange chicken, Greek yogurt and triple ginger snaps. You can read the Full Story.

Leave it to quirky 312-store TJ's to do a top 34 list rather than a top 25, top 50, ect. as is the norm. It's a sign of a confident retailer when it publishes its top selling items for all its competition to view.

Southern CA, Nevada, Arizona: Green holidays at Fresh & Easy

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is launching its second annual holiday card recycling program in its 104 combination grocery and fresh foods markets in Southern California, Southern Nevada and in the Phoenix Metropolitan region in Arizona. Read about the program here: Fresh & Easy Makes the Holidays a Little Greener.

Southern CA, Nevada, Arizona: The Whole Deal

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) legal case against Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market, Inc., which operates numerous natural/organic and premium foods markets in the Western USA, continues to heat up.

The FTC is trying to overturn Whole Foods' friendly acquisition of Wild Oats Market, Inc, which happened in the summer of 2007. Whole Foods has nearly completed merging all of the Wild Oats stores into its operations and culture.

Last week Whole Foods filed a lawsuit against the FTC saying it has violated the companies due process. Whole Foods also has launched a massive lobbying and public relations campaign targeting the FTC.

Next up: The FTC has set a hearing in February, 2009 in which an administrative law judge will decide if the merger should stay or be overturned. Whole Foods is asking in its lawsuit that that hearing be cancelled, and that the case be moved to a U.S. federal court. Whole Foods has beat the FTC twice in federal court. However the law allows the FTC to reopen its case -- which is what it has done.

The Blog Natural~Specialty Foods Memo has extensive coverage and analysis on the FTC-Whole Foods legal case and issue. You can read that coverage and analysis at: http://www.naturalspecialtyfoodsmemo.blogspot.com/.

The case has implications for how future mergers and acquisitions are handled in the supermarket industry as well as across all industries in the U.S.

Southern CA: Major holiday gift from a grocer

Kroger Co.'s Southern California-based Ralphs/Food 4 Less chain is making a holiday season gift of $125,000 to four Southern California children's hospitals. Each children;s hospital will receive a $25,000 holiday donation from Ralphs. The Southern California hospitals are:

>Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA)

> Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC)

> Loma Linda University Children's Hospital

> Miller Children's Hospital at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center

> Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego

Based in Los Angeles, California, Ralphs and Food 4 Less currently operate more than 400 conventional and warehouse-style supermarkets in California, Southern Nevada, Illinois and Indiana. The majority of the stores are in Southern California and Southern Nevada.

Last year the Kroger Co. division provided more than $12 million in cash and in-kind donations to organizations focused on women's and children's health, K-12 education, the fight against hunger, celebrating multiculturalism and disaster relief, according to Ralphs' president Mike Donnelly. Read more here.

Southern CA: Discounter Winco Foods opens new store in Indio

Employee-owned discount supermarket chain Winco Foods, which has been opening numerous new stores throughout California over the last couple years, opened a brand new mega-store in the Southern California desert region city of Indio on December 10.

Winco's focus is no frills, deep-discount food and grocery retailing. The chain is headquartered in Idaho. California is one of Winco's top growth markets for the next couple years.

Read more about the new Indio Winco here.

Indio and the Inland Empire region of Southern California is a key market for Tesco's Fresh & Easy. The grocery chain has a number of its small-format, convenience-oriented grocery and fresh foods markets in the desert region, including two in Indio. Plans call for more Fresh & Easy stores in the region. Tesco's Fresh & Easy distribution center is located in Riverside County in the Inland Empire regions as well.

Southern CA: Organic prepared foods not 'going'as well

Publicly-held Southern California-based fresh, prepared foods chain Organic to Go is struggling with sales of its higher priced organic ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat prepared foods offerings in its cafe/stores. As a result, the retailer is looking to close some of what it says are underperforming locations in the Southern California market. Read here: Organic To Go Reports Third Quarter Results.

Shoppers are turning away from ready-to-eat and heat foods, especially higher priced premium and organic meals and side dishes, in the current recession as they cook more at home and therefore buy more ingredient-oriented food and grocery products. It's all about value right now, including in the fresh, prepared foods category.

Las Vegas: Ethnic grocers battle each other - and for broader share of customer base

There's a battle of the ethnic supermarkets going on in Las Vegas -- and they aren't just after Hispanic or Asian consumers. They want as many dollars as they can get, regardless of the shoppers ethnic background. If a grocer can't gamble in Vegas, where can they, after all.

The battle includes a new player from Southern California entering the Vegas market. Cardenas Markets, a family-owned chain based in Ontario, Calif., is taking over the former Albertsons store that closed at Bonanza Road and Lamb Boulevard. It's the first of several Cardenas markets coming to Las Vegas, said Otto Merida, executive director of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, according to a story in the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper.

Cardenas, which we are familiar with as a very good ethnic grocer, will join Las Vegas multi-store operators like King Ranch and Mariana's supermarkets.

These supermarkets are increasingly drawing non-Hispanic shoppers as well as their core Latino customer base. Read the piece from the Las Vegas Review Journal here. After all, it is really about share of consumer stomach when it comes to competitive food retailing.

Related News: Hispanic purchasing power on the rise and expected to continue ...

Arizona: Bashas testing new prepared foods format in Goodyear

Arizona-based Bashas supermarkets, a family-owned chain with about 160 supermarkets under various formats in the state, is testing a brand new format and concept -- a food court featuring a huge assortment of fresh, prepared foods -- in a brand new 50,000 square foot Bashas banner supermarket in Goodyear, Arizona.

The store, on Pebble Creek Parkway, north of McDowell Road in Goodyear, opened a little over a week ago. Unlike other Bashas' in the state, it includes an in-store food court, featuring a Mongolian grill, Italian and Mexican cuisine and other food selections. Indoor and patio seating allows customers to eat at the store, and special parking spaces make picking up takeout move faster.

The Arizona Republic newspaper profiled the store in a recent article. Click here to read it: Food court at new Bashas' in Goodyear whets appetites.

Bashas told Fresh & Easy Buzz the new fresh, prepared foods' food court concept is a test in the store. If it does well the supermarket chain says it plans to roll it out wherever it thinks it will do well.

The new format is Bashas response in part to new retailer's like Fresh & Easy and Wal-Mart's Marketside that are focusing on fresh, prepared foods retailing in the Arizona market, as well as to all the other players putting increased emphasis on prepared foods merchandising.

The difference in the new Bashas' format though is that at 50,000 square feet, the supermarket concept incorporating the fresh foods court is about five times as big as a Fresh & Easy store and about three to four times bigger than a Wal-Mart Marketside store, but offers as much or more in the fresh, prepared foods category than both of those formats do.

The food court is like a prepared foods store-within-a-store concept, in other words. The features like outdoor ordering and dining and convenient pickup add a convenience element to the concept, allowing customers to bypass the rest of the store and just use the food court, for example.

Arizona: Look mom, clean hands

The handles of supermarket shopping carts are "scummier" than port-a-potties, so said a recent study done by the University of Arizona. As a result of this practical research, a number of Phoenix, Arizona region supermarkets are solving the problem for shoppers and store employees. Read about the solution here: Phoenix area supermarkets using cart washers.

End Note:

Across the pond: United Kingdom

The UK Telegraph.com newspaper Web site is reporting American-produced wines (read California in the main) are overtaking French wines in British consumers hearts, minds and pallets. Click the link to read the article: American wine overtakes France in British drinkers' affection.

We suspect if U.S.-produced wine continues this consumer preference trend over French wine in the UK, it's likely U.S.-French diplomatic relations could be seriously harmed. After all, the French will pretty much forgive anything the U.S. does -- waging war in the Middle East, the CIA's unlawful (to the EU) rendition program, avoiding global warming, laughing at French-made automobiles (and the U.S. did forgive all that France against the Iraq war stuff on its end) -- but when it comes to wine...well, we think you get the picture. God save the Queen - and pass the Napa Valley Merlot.