Not long after the Bristol Farms closure came news that a different sort of market would be coming to Valencia, perhaps better attuned to our choosy-yet-housepoor community. SCVtalk has been following the story all year, and we weren’t alone.
Today, Sprouts Farmers Markets opened in Valencia and I braved the opening day crowds, but not the (fifteen-deep) opening day lines.
While it shares some of the quirkiness (and off-brands) as Trader Joe’s and has its share of Whole Foods-inspired piety, much of the store’s offerings are comparable to what you would find in a conventional grocery store.
For example, just about everything is available in the produce section, regardless of season, and organics are restricted to a space in the corner. That said, fruits and vegetables that are in the height of their season are displayed in abundance. The produce section just might be the largest, as a share of the total space, in the SCV. There are some additional nice touches, like bulk salad greens, but much of this will look familiar to a Ralph’s shopper.
The cheese-deli-meat operation was an interesting mishmash. The cheese selection and quality seemed south of Whole Foods and Bristol Farms, but a notch above Trader Joe’s. The butcher counter is mostly a fish counter, save for the litany of house-made sausage. The rest of the meat selection was impressive. Nearly all beef is USDA Choice or higher and it’s priced well. From what I could see, there is also a fair amount of organic beef and poultry. Like Trader Joe’s, there are very few larger cuts or roasts. I noticed a couple of people manning deli slicers, but I couldn’t figure out how to order sliced meat or cheese.
Most unusual, to my eyes, were the aisles of various bulk grains, dried fruit, nuts, granola, and who knows what else. There is a full barrel of dried cranberries (strange, right?). Next time, I’ll inspect further, but as a home cook, I expect that this will be an invaluable resource.
I confess to being disappointed with the coffee selection, which is limited to a few pre-ground brands and a couple dozen varieties of the house brand, much of it flavored and/or decaf and/or roasted to a crisp. Oh well.
This sounds like a lot of hemming and hawing, but my early guess is that they’ve found a sweet spot for this community. There’s a happy medium of price and quality, plus the selection is wide enough to make it your only stop. The location is less than ideal, especially since just about everyone in this valley will pass another market on their way, but I think there is enough here to keep me, and others, returning.
When the crowds thin out a little, I’ll even buy something.
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I am sort of crestfallen to read the coffee selection is mediocre. I had high hopes for them. I’ll go check it out, but it sounds to be at this point Whole Foods has the better coffee selection and they roast their beans at their location.
Now, for all I know, their house brand is incredible, but their a) limited selection, b) emphasis on flavored coffee and c) preponderance of ground coffee (all outside brands, save for a single variety of Peets), all suggest that they aren’t serious about great coffee.
This is my favorite way to get coffee: http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/
I said it before but ask them if they will bring it in for you. I have asked stores to do this for me before and it has happened with my need for habenero cheese and jalapeno david sunfower seeds.
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Great post.
So what will it draw traffic from? TJ’s? Supermarkets? Farmer’s markets? All of the above?
Hard to say. I think their typical consumer would be the sort of person that would like to shop at Whole Foods regularly, but can’t afford it. I suspect they would draw primarily from the Pavilions shoppers, with some “destination” shoppers mixed in.
Instead of being a halfway point between two types of places, it’s a mishmash of different approaches. Some of it is very conventional, but then the dry goods are filled with brands you don’t see outside of TJ and WF. Like Whole Foods, they don’t carry cured bacon (ridiculous). But then a WF likes to be virtuous while keeping a very high quality standard. They don’t seem so ambitious. A lot of people would compare it to Trader Joe’s, but that’s more fuzzy, even if it’s the most apt. They don’t have the prepared foods that TJ’s has, but they put them to shame with produce and meat.
Checked Sprouts out today. Very impressed.
1. They had pretty much anything I need other than my usual Target stuff.
2. Great prices (Whole Foods)
3. Fresh food- and lots of it (great fish/meat selection) (TJs)
4. Nice people- fast service. (Pavilions)
5. NONE OF THOSE STUPID SELF CHECKOUTS- real people in real jobs (Ralphs/Albertsons)
6. Lots of parking (TJs)
No more TJs, Pavilions, Ralphs, Albertsons or Whole Foods for me. Sorry guys…
“5. NONE OF THOSE STUPID SELF CHECKOUTS- real people in real jobs (Ralphs/Albertsons)”
Bummer, that may keep me out.
When I need 5-10 items, having to wait for Awesometownmom and her 5 brats as they take their time fiddling with the candy in the checkout line, and chat it up with the help while it stand there staring at the ceiling… I’d rather do it myself and get otu of their in 60 seconds.
Why are you so against them? Nobody forces you to use them!
My Nebraska Bride, who usually needs to hit Whole Foods, TJ’s AND Ralphs to satisfy our late in life foodie-nutrition ways announced yesterday that she thinks she can get EVERYTHING at Sprouts. Impressive!
I shop at Sprouts when we visit the inlaws in AZ. At least at theirs, the main customer base seems to be middle aged and older. I’m only guessing here, but my thought is that they are people that were alive when the market wasn’t so ‘super’ and you could actually walk in to the market and just get food without having to walk through dozens of aisles of crap to find what you’re looking for.
I don’t quite understand the Sprouts connection to Henry’s Markets, over the last couple of years, while traveling through Southern CA I have stopped at numerous Henry’s locations and the customer service has been horrible, not enough checkouts open, employee’s in the twilight zone….. I noticed a couple of people manning deli slicers, but I couldn’t figure out how to order sliced meat or cheese…this comment from Mike is not a surprise.
Herny Boney started a fruit stand in San diego which he eventually morphed into Henry’s Marketplace, which was sold to Wild Oats in ’97 and were renamed Henry’s Farmers Market. When Whole Foods acquired Wild Oats, the SEC required WF to divest the Henry’s Farmers Markets, which were sold to Smart & Final. The Henry’s are operated as a separate business unit. Meanwhile, Henry’s son Stan Boney founded Sprouts in Arizona in 2002 using some of dad’s playbook, like the oversized produce department and robust sellection of bulk foods. Regarding the comment about not being able to figure out how to order cheese from the deli, the answer was wait behind a dozen people. It’s a bit unfair and uncharitable to expect any employee, let alone a crew of many trainees, to be able to produce the volume the opening day crowd could by. I was in the store at 1PM, all check outs were lined up into the produce section, I waited 45 minutes to check out, but saw very few out of stock items. It’s like Toys R Us on Christmas Eve.
I thought the new Sprouts was a great store. Better quality/selection than Trader Joe’s and better prices than whole foods and IMO Trader Joes also. Mike!!! Get ur coffe somewhere else!!! Im sure you aready have a place and a coffee that you like to get your stuff from, better yet, ask Sprouts if they would be so kind as to bring in your coffee for you! You are an awesome dude, Im sure they wouldnt mind doing that for you!
Van smack
1 last thing, im thinking that the editor and chief of this site will want to have me stoned to death Iranian style after saying this but, I love sprouts so much for a the right reasons. I hope they put Whole foods out of business for taking my whole paycheck, and also Traders for moving to the other side of the 4 gates of hell. They are traders as their name would hint at.
Haven’t been to Sprouts yet, but I will go soon. I love Trader Joes, but have cut back on my trips there since they moved.
Sounds to be a near-replica of Henry’s Markets…. which is a good thing for SCV.
I’ll try to get by to check it out this weekend….
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I was really disappointed in their organic section, it was very very small for a store that claims to be a “farmer’s market”. I was also VERY excited to find out that they have grass fed beef only to be told (after I asked) that it comes from Uraguay….NO THANK YOU! They are so close to being the perfect market but alas I will still need to do my shoping at mulitple locations…….
Yeah, pretty absurd that “Farmers Market” is in the title. The produce was the biggest letdown.