PHOENIX, AZ
Sprouts Farmers Market is expanding its national footprint by opening 14 stores during its third quarter this year.
“We’re on track to open a total of 14 stores during the third quarter, putting us at 24 stores for the calendar year, or 14% unit growth. Our growth plans currently includes 67 of pre-sites, and 42 signed leases for the coming years. All of our new stores are performing better than we expected, as we continue to serve as the healthy grocery store for our customers,” said Doug Sanders, Sprouts President & CEO during the company’s Q2 earnings conference call.
Sprouts’ Q2 financial report beat analyst expectations across the board. Net sales rose 20% over numbers from the same period in 2013 to $743.8 million and comparable store sales grew 9.5%.
By early next year, Sprouts will also be building its first Alabama location in Birmingham, though the company has declined to specify the exact address of the location, according to Alabama Today. This new store includes previously announced sites at Bakersfield, CA; Cumming, GA; Daly City, CA; Liberty, MO; Scottsdale, AZ; and South Jordan, UT.
Meanwhile, reports from Tampa Bay Business Journal suggest that despite having been scouting real estate locations throughout Florida, Sprouts may be slowing down these plans for the immediate future while it assesses the success of its recently built Atlanta locations.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the positive consumer feedback to the two stores that are open in Georgia,” said Sprouts spokeswoman Donna Egan. “So we would certainly love for them to be a bellwether, but we don’t have anything to share at this time.”
Sprouts has already opened 6 stores in the last fiscal quarter, with 5 more having been opened this quarter. Stay tuned to DeliMarket TV as we continue following Sprouts’ future plans for expansion.
