From the Natural~Specialty Foods Memo Editor's Desk: As regular readers of Natural~Specialty Foods Memo (NSFM) are aware, we write often about fast-growing natural foods retail chain Sunflower Farmers Market, calling it one of the smaller-format, "fighting tiger" (the big tiger being Whole Foods Market, Inc.) natural grocers along with Sprouts Farmers Market. [Just type in Sunflower Farmers Market in the search box at the top of the blog and you can get a selection of those stories and posts.]
We first started writing about Sunflower Farmers Market, which was founded by former Wild Oats Market, Inc. founder Mike Gilliland (pictured above in a store produce department) who is the company's CEO or 'Head Sunflower,' last year (when NSFM was started) at a time when most publications devoted very little if any ink to the natural foods' grocer.
We've continued to regularly report on the retailer's developments and write about what we often call the natural foods retail space category-killer because of its discount prices on natural and organic products, especially fresh produce and shelf-stable food grocery items.
With the $30 million Sunflower Farmers Market raised early this year, it's embarked upon a fast-growth new store strategy, as we've written about. This growth strategy even includes opening stores in Whole Foods Market's home territory of Texas.
We often suggest that Sunflower and Sprouts Farmers Market combined offer much more of a competitive challenge today to Whole Foods Market, Inc. than Wild Oats did pre-acquisition. Of course, Sunflower and Sprouts don't have as many stores as Wild Oats had before merging with Whole Foods Market last year. (There were 110 Wild Oats-owned stores when Whole Foods acquired the chain last year.) However, both "fighting tiger" natural foods retailers are growing so fast it won't be too long until they reach that number between them.
Sunflower Farmers Market has started getting attention from both the mainstream supermarket industry trade press and the consumer business press in the last couple months. This is for two primary reasons: The natural grocer's raising of the $30 million in investment money earlier this year and its resulting rapid new store opening program, and because the editors and reporters for these publications now read blogs like Natural~Specialty Foods Memo and others regularly. We know this because we often get email communications from newspaper business section writers and others about stories we write about or news we break regarding the industry.
Business Week, arguably the mainstream media bible of business and industry in the United States, recently published a feature article on Sunflower Farmers Market and its founder Mike Gilliland--who by the way is no friend of John (Whole Foods' John Mackey that is). The two are the natural foods industry's version of the chemical reaction that results when you mix oil and water together if you've ever seen them in the same room together, even if that room is one of the two huge exhibit floors at the east or west coast Natural Foods Expo industry trade shows held annually.
We thought the Business Week article was pretty was well done and informative and therefore wanted to bring it to our readers in case you didn't see and read it in Business Week in late July. Plus, we are on vacation today--so we aren't writing an original piece or two like normal.
Sunflower Sprouts Fresh Stores and Consumers
Mike Gilliland, Wild Oats' founder, has big plans for his fast-growing Sunflower Farmers Market
by Jessie Scanlon
Page Morgan-Draper still shops at her local Albuquerque Whole Foods (WFMI). But, says the mother of two: "We're not made of money." That's one of the reasons she stops at a Sunflower Farmers Market on her way home from work three days a week. The fast-growing chain of grocery stores in five Western and Southwestern states specializes in produce, much of it organic, bought directly from farmers and sold at almost Wal-Mart (WMT) like prices—two pounds of organic broccoli for $3 and 99¢ for a pound of apples, to quote recent specials at Morgan-Draper's local store.
With its "Serious Food, Silly Prices" tag line, Sunflower targets consumers like Morgan-Draper who want to eat healthy, natural foods, but can't afford—or don't want to pay—gourmet prices. As Sunflower CEO and co-founder Mike Gilliland puts it: "We're a cost-conscious Whole Foods."
But Gilliland wants to do more than just pick off that high-end grocery's belt-tightening shoppers. His prices, and the weekly Sunflower sales advertised in the newspaper beside the local supermarket ads, are an attempt to lure consumers at the middle-to-low end of the market. The potential genius of Sunflower is its appeal to consumers at both ends of a market that's increasingly split between low-cost big-box stores and wholesale clubs on one end, and high-end retailers at the other.
Growing His Second Chain
It's an innovative strategy that's easier said than done. The relative newcomer is virtually surrounded by highly aggressive competitors, from Whole Foods to the increasingly organic Wal-Mart and its recent small-format spin-off, Wal-Mart Marketplace (NSFM Editor's note: it's Marketside not Marketplace), itself launched in response to British brand Tesco's U.S. effort, Fresh and Easy.
But higher food prices—up 5% nationally between April, 2007 and April, 2008, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics—could give Sunflower a boost, as even middle class consumers become more price-conscious. And Sunflower's emphasis on organic produce, much of it grown locally, should appeal to the consumers that spent a total of $1 billion at farmers markets in 2006. Buoyed by these trends—and by a $30 million investment by private equity firm PCG Capital Partners in December, 2007—Sunflower is in the midst of a rapid expansion, growing from its current 14 stores to some 21 locations by the end of 2008. Fifty stores are planned for five years from now.
Sunflower is almost a déjà vu for Gilliland, who founded Wild Oats with his wife, Libby Cook, in 1987. "Back then, most people couldn't spell 'tofu,'" says the natural-foods pioneer. Despite some missteps as a first-time entrepreneur, he built Wild Oats into a $2.2 billion company before stepping down as CEO in 2001. (The more successful Whole Foods bought Wild Oats in 2007 for $565 million.) He launched Sunflower in 2002.
Pricing, Pricing, Pricing
There's a reason Gilliland thinks Sunflower will do well against his longstanding rival. The company's farmers-market format is based on a California chain called Henry's Market, one of the many companies Gilliland had acquired when he was Wild Oats CEO. As his company and Whole Foods expanded, he increasingly found his stores under pressure. "A Whole Foods would open nearby and the typical Wild Oats would lose 30% to 40% of its business overnight," he says.
But stores based on the Henry's Market format competed well because they were less intimidating to the casual natural-foods shopper and appealed to the demographic that didn't want to pay for the glitz of a natural-foods superstore.
Pricing is key to Sunflower's strategy and its drive to undersell Wal-Mart. Gilliland claims that at least 80% of the store's produce beats the giant's prices. He and his team have been rethinking myriad aspects of their business, trying to "squeeze pennies out of everything," he says. Sunflower buys its produce by the truckload directly from farmers; local trucking is done by Sunflower staff, using company vehicles. Construction, too, is managed in-house by Gilliland's brother, who outsources some jobs to skilled workers. This allows Sunflower to build a new store for less than $2 million, or $70 a square foot, compared to the $150-per-square-foot industry average for a new supermarket.
In terms of design, the stores are no-frills. "They're nice stores, but not works of art," says Gilliland. "Whole Foods is like a museum!" Of course, it's "silly prices," not sleek design, that he's going for.
A natural surge?
At least in the short run, analysts aren't convinced that Sunflower's market-bridging strategy will succeed, especially when it comes to wooing low-end consumers. "Let's get real," says David Livingston of DJL Research. "[Sunflower] simply does not have the economies of scale in terms of labor, rent, and purchasing power [to beat Wal-Mart]." Apart from produce, Sunflower's prices are higher than the giant's, although they're competitive. While consumers who are tired of the big-box shopping experience may be willing to pay a bit more at a friendly, smaller-format store, it's far from certain they will.
Considering the other ends of the market, Paul Weitzel, a managing partner at Willard Bishop, says: "I don't think people who shop organic are as price sensitive as some." But with the economy tightening, more consumers are going to focus on value.
It's too early to call Sunflower a resounding success, but its strategy seems to be working. Same store year-over-year sales are up by double digits, according to Gilliland. Looking forward, the company will benefit from consumers' continued focus on fresh produce and on healthy foods. According to Progressive Grocer's 2008 Annual Report on the industry, retailers expect produce to be the most-shopped food category this year, followed by private-label products—double good news for Sunflower.
"We expect a surge over the next five years as naturals go from niche to mainstream," says Willard Bishop's Weitzel. "Sunflower will be well-positioned for that."
Jessie Scanlon is the senior writer for Innovation & Design on BusinessWeek.com.
We first started writing about Sunflower Farmers Market, which was founded by former Wild Oats Market, Inc. founder Mike Gilliland (pictured above in a store produce department) who is the company's CEO or 'Head Sunflower,' last year (when NSFM was started) at a time when most publications devoted very little if any ink to the natural foods' grocer.
We've continued to regularly report on the retailer's developments and write about what we often call the natural foods retail space category-killer because of its discount prices on natural and organic products, especially fresh produce and shelf-stable food grocery items.
With the $30 million Sunflower Farmers Market raised early this year, it's embarked upon a fast-growth new store strategy, as we've written about. This growth strategy even includes opening stores in Whole Foods Market's home territory of Texas.
We often suggest that Sunflower and Sprouts Farmers Market combined offer much more of a competitive challenge today to Whole Foods Market, Inc. than Wild Oats did pre-acquisition. Of course, Sunflower and Sprouts don't have as many stores as Wild Oats had before merging with Whole Foods Market last year. (There were 110 Wild Oats-owned stores when Whole Foods acquired the chain last year.) However, both "fighting tiger" natural foods retailers are growing so fast it won't be too long until they reach that number between them.
Sunflower Farmers Market has started getting attention from both the mainstream supermarket industry trade press and the consumer business press in the last couple months. This is for two primary reasons: The natural grocer's raising of the $30 million in investment money earlier this year and its resulting rapid new store opening program, and because the editors and reporters for these publications now read blogs like Natural~Specialty Foods Memo and others regularly. We know this because we often get email communications from newspaper business section writers and others about stories we write about or news we break regarding the industry.
Business Week, arguably the mainstream media bible of business and industry in the United States, recently published a feature article on Sunflower Farmers Market and its founder Mike Gilliland--who by the way is no friend of John (Whole Foods' John Mackey that is). The two are the natural foods industry's version of the chemical reaction that results when you mix oil and water together if you've ever seen them in the same room together, even if that room is one of the two huge exhibit floors at the east or west coast Natural Foods Expo industry trade shows held annually.
We thought the Business Week article was pretty was well done and informative and therefore wanted to bring it to our readers in case you didn't see and read it in Business Week in late July. Plus, we are on vacation today--so we aren't writing an original piece or two like normal.
Sunflower Sprouts Fresh Stores and Consumers
Mike Gilliland, Wild Oats' founder, has big plans for his fast-growing Sunflower Farmers Market
by Jessie Scanlon
Page Morgan-Draper still shops at her local Albuquerque Whole Foods (WFMI). But, says the mother of two: "We're not made of money." That's one of the reasons she stops at a Sunflower Farmers Market on her way home from work three days a week. The fast-growing chain of grocery stores in five Western and Southwestern states specializes in produce, much of it organic, bought directly from farmers and sold at almost Wal-Mart (WMT) like prices—two pounds of organic broccoli for $3 and 99¢ for a pound of apples, to quote recent specials at Morgan-Draper's local store.
With its "Serious Food, Silly Prices" tag line, Sunflower targets consumers like Morgan-Draper who want to eat healthy, natural foods, but can't afford—or don't want to pay—gourmet prices. As Sunflower CEO and co-founder Mike Gilliland puts it: "We're a cost-conscious Whole Foods."
But Gilliland wants to do more than just pick off that high-end grocery's belt-tightening shoppers. His prices, and the weekly Sunflower sales advertised in the newspaper beside the local supermarket ads, are an attempt to lure consumers at the middle-to-low end of the market. The potential genius of Sunflower is its appeal to consumers at both ends of a market that's increasingly split between low-cost big-box stores and wholesale clubs on one end, and high-end retailers at the other.
Growing His Second Chain
It's an innovative strategy that's easier said than done. The relative newcomer is virtually surrounded by highly aggressive competitors, from Whole Foods to the increasingly organic Wal-Mart and its recent small-format spin-off, Wal-Mart Marketplace (NSFM Editor's note: it's Marketside not Marketplace), itself launched in response to British brand Tesco's U.S. effort, Fresh and Easy.
But higher food prices—up 5% nationally between April, 2007 and April, 2008, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics—could give Sunflower a boost, as even middle class consumers become more price-conscious. And Sunflower's emphasis on organic produce, much of it grown locally, should appeal to the consumers that spent a total of $1 billion at farmers markets in 2006. Buoyed by these trends—and by a $30 million investment by private equity firm PCG Capital Partners in December, 2007—Sunflower is in the midst of a rapid expansion, growing from its current 14 stores to some 21 locations by the end of 2008. Fifty stores are planned for five years from now.
Sunflower is almost a déjà vu for Gilliland, who founded Wild Oats with his wife, Libby Cook, in 1987. "Back then, most people couldn't spell 'tofu,'" says the natural-foods pioneer. Despite some missteps as a first-time entrepreneur, he built Wild Oats into a $2.2 billion company before stepping down as CEO in 2001. (The more successful Whole Foods bought Wild Oats in 2007 for $565 million.) He launched Sunflower in 2002.
Pricing, Pricing, Pricing
There's a reason Gilliland thinks Sunflower will do well against his longstanding rival. The company's farmers-market format is based on a California chain called Henry's Market, one of the many companies Gilliland had acquired when he was Wild Oats CEO. As his company and Whole Foods expanded, he increasingly found his stores under pressure. "A Whole Foods would open nearby and the typical Wild Oats would lose 30% to 40% of its business overnight," he says.
But stores based on the Henry's Market format competed well because they were less intimidating to the casual natural-foods shopper and appealed to the demographic that didn't want to pay for the glitz of a natural-foods superstore.
Pricing is key to Sunflower's strategy and its drive to undersell Wal-Mart. Gilliland claims that at least 80% of the store's produce beats the giant's prices. He and his team have been rethinking myriad aspects of their business, trying to "squeeze pennies out of everything," he says. Sunflower buys its produce by the truckload directly from farmers; local trucking is done by Sunflower staff, using company vehicles. Construction, too, is managed in-house by Gilliland's brother, who outsources some jobs to skilled workers. This allows Sunflower to build a new store for less than $2 million, or $70 a square foot, compared to the $150-per-square-foot industry average for a new supermarket.
In terms of design, the stores are no-frills. "They're nice stores, but not works of art," says Gilliland. "Whole Foods is like a museum!" Of course, it's "silly prices," not sleek design, that he's going for.
A natural surge?
At least in the short run, analysts aren't convinced that Sunflower's market-bridging strategy will succeed, especially when it comes to wooing low-end consumers. "Let's get real," says David Livingston of DJL Research. "[Sunflower] simply does not have the economies of scale in terms of labor, rent, and purchasing power [to beat Wal-Mart]." Apart from produce, Sunflower's prices are higher than the giant's, although they're competitive. While consumers who are tired of the big-box shopping experience may be willing to pay a bit more at a friendly, smaller-format store, it's far from certain they will.
Considering the other ends of the market, Paul Weitzel, a managing partner at Willard Bishop, says: "I don't think people who shop organic are as price sensitive as some." But with the economy tightening, more consumers are going to focus on value.
It's too early to call Sunflower a resounding success, but its strategy seems to be working. Same store year-over-year sales are up by double digits, according to Gilliland. Looking forward, the company will benefit from consumers' continued focus on fresh produce and on healthy foods. According to Progressive Grocer's 2008 Annual Report on the industry, retailers expect produce to be the most-shopped food category this year, followed by private-label products—double good news for Sunflower.
"We expect a surge over the next five years as naturals go from niche to mainstream," says Willard Bishop's Weitzel. "Sunflower will be well-positioned for that."
Jessie Scanlon is the senior writer for Innovation & Design on BusinessWeek.com.
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