Sprouts Farmers Market

True to its farm-stand heritage, Sprouts offers a unique grocery experience featuring an open layout with fresh produce at the heart of the store. Sprouts inspires wellness naturally with a carefully curated assortment of better-for-you products paired with purpose-driven people. The healthy grocer continues to bring the latest in wholesome, innovative products made with lifestyle-friendly ingredients such as organic, plant-based and gluten-free. Headquartered in Phoenix, and one of the largest and fastest growing specialty retailers of fresh, natural and organic food in the United States, Sprouts employs approximately 31,000 team members and operates approximately 380 stores in 23 states nationwide.

Sprouts' robust growth story, passionate team members, a loyal customer base, and its fresh differentiation, provides the ingredients for its long-term success as a specialty store destination. “We have the right strategy and are excited about moving it forward piece by piece, making great progress on our supply-chain-differentiated merchandise, new format and-real estate selections," said CEO Jack Sinclair in a statement last year, "We’re focused on delivering a clear message that highlights our sharp produce pricing, innovative products and a farmers-market experience to drive additional transactions in the quarters and years ahead.” As Sprouts continues to grow and evolve, it is committed to providing unique, quality and sustainable products to the more than 3 million shoppers who visit its stores every week. "We look forward to continuing to engage our communities with innovative, healthy products in convenient smaller format stores, shaping our brand as a destination specialty grocer," said Sinclair earlier this month during the earnings call.

In some ways the pandemic situation helped amplify and speed up changes that were already on the horizon. One example is the fact that the company was able to expand curbside pickup to the entire chain in a short period of time. Another is the new focus on e-commerce.

Sprouts launched its own ecommerce capability at the end of Q3 2020 and this new channel now represents significant chunk of its overall sales, with the bulk still being through Instacart. Through Instacart and Sprouts' own shopping site, the company is collecting meaningful data from about two-thirds of eCommerce customers. Its online baskets are twice the size of in-store baskets (which "are in the low 40's").

Jack Sinclair, CEO

Several years ago executives at Sprouts made the decision to shift from building larger format stores to smaller store models with more thought put into the positioning of departments. The strategy has paid off as the retailer is turning out some of its best volumes in years. In terms of space, Sprouts has cut back on the size of its stores, to 23,000 square feet from 32,000 square feet. It has redesigned dairy prep area, the meat prep area and the bakery prep area. Each of these departments are showing real success in the product innovation and sales.