Franchised Sprouts locations

California. No non-grocery posts.
storewanderer
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Re: Franchised Sprouts locations

Post by storewanderer »

Our Sprouts in Reno which opened a few months ago has various issues that you describe. I have seen entire displays of dozens of packages of moldy strawberries or raspberries, and in other cases where the displayed product looked fine, purchased those items to have them rotten the next day (also a common issue at Smiths and WinCo, really annoying). However, the store is very clean. The store has that odd cheese smell though I do not mind that at all. The produce area is routinely poorly stocked with empty spaces and ad items are routinely out of stock the whole ad. I have been told by the manager they do not get what they order and the warehouse substitutes other items for them (honeycrisp apples on sale .98/lb, but warehouse sends them none but instead triples or quadruples how many fuji apples they send, for instance). The week of Thanksgiving they ran a great deal on garnet yams .39/lb but were out of stock 3 days I went trying to get them. When I was in the store last week the customer in front of me was interrogating the cashier about some 3/$1 mangos that were out of stock asking when they would come in, what the phone number to the store was so he could call to ask when they would be in, etc. This store has serious problems with its distribution and based on what I have been told the issue is with the warehouse not sending them what they order. Checkout is poorly managed with the 1 or 2 lines usually open often 5 long before another lane is opened, but they usually open a few lanes up at that point so it gets cleared out real quick.

I have never seen any of these issues in any other Sprouts Stores I have visited in various states. I hope they get their act together here as they add additional stores in the market. I really like the store and live near it, and go in a few times a week, but hardly buy anything there due to the issues with out of stocks, poor quality product on display, deli that closes at a different time every night, and a really poor dairy program.

I wonder if they will engage in a franchise strategy to expand into other markets or the stores in Chula Vista are grandfathered in until they go away (or sell back to the main company).
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