Retail Watchers

ClownLoach wrote: ↑October 8th, 2023, 12:10 am Was driving around and stubled across a brand new distribution center complex in the Fullerton area that looked like it was potentially built for Amazon and subsequently canceled or closed. Saw signs along the driveways and discovered it is a massive new Sprouts DC. Not sure if they have the entire complex or just one building but the facility spans a couple large city blocks. I was surprised they would build in Fullerton vs cheaper land in the IE, but it could mean fresher product and reduced travel time to LA/OC market stores and points north.

This was designed and built by Sprouts. It is the old Kimberly Clark plant site that was demolished a while ago.

I am not clear how this impacts their Colton distribution center, if at all.

storewanderer wrote: ↑October 8th, 2023, 12:29 am

ClownLoach wrote: ↑October 8th, 2023, 12:10 am Was driving around and stubled across a brand new distribution center complex in the Fullerton area that looked like it was potentially built for Amazon and subsequently canceled or closed. Saw signs along the driveways and discovered it is a massive new Sprouts DC. Not sure if they have the entire complex or just one building but the facility spans a couple large city blocks. I was surprised they would build in Fullerton vs cheaper land in the IE, but it could mean fresher product and reduced travel time to LA/OC market stores and points north.

This was designed and built by Sprouts. It is the old Kimberly Clark plant site that was demolished a while ago.

I am not clear how this impacts their Colton distribution center, if at all.

Reason I thought it was intended to be an Amazon facility is it is another "Goodman" branded warehouse like Eastvale, Anaheim and others which are all basically subleased to Amazon. "Goodman" must be their developer of choice now. Either way it looks like they're just starting up operations.

ClownLoach wrote: ↑October 8th, 2023, 10:16 am

storewanderer wrote: ↑October 8th, 2023, 12:29 am

ClownLoach wrote: ↑October 8th, 2023, 12:10 am Was driving around and stubled across a brand new distribution center complex in the Fullerton area that looked like it was potentially built for Amazon and subsequently canceled or closed. Saw signs along the driveways and discovered it is a massive new Sprouts DC. Not sure if they have the entire complex or just one building but the facility spans a couple large city blocks. I was surprised they would build in Fullerton vs cheaper land in the IE, but it could mean fresher product and reduced travel time to LA/OC market stores and points north.

This was designed and built by Sprouts. It is the old Kimberly Clark plant site that was demolished a while ago.

I am not clear how this impacts their Colton distribution center, if at all.

Reason I thought it was intended to be an Amazon facility is it is another "Goodman" branded warehouse like Eastvale, Anaheim and others which are all basically subleased to Amazon. "Goodman" must be their developer of choice now. Either way it looks like they're just starting up operations.

Sprouts has some very aggressive expansion plans... Distribution is an issue with how their territory is. The way they are doing this is they open smaller produce distribution centers in other regions (like NorCal has one, FL has one, CO has one) that are run in partnership with Penske Logistics, then this large Fullerton center is going to be their main distribution center for other items.

https://www.ocregister.com/2023/10/12/s ... rtnlfseisr

The Fullerton facility is now open and it is a produce facility.

Sprouts had a distribution center in Colton, CA. What happened to that?

I do not understand why this article says the next closest center was in Union City (NorCal) and this new center will be so great for the environment as it will save them so many thousands of transport miles. They had a center in Colton...

Union City was never supplying stores in SoCal to my knowledge, it is a pretty small center. I could be wrong.

I guess Sprouts can put whatever spin on things they want to even if they ignore that this basically served as a replacement for Colton in their release.

Coming back to this thread to mention I shopped at a Sprouts for the first time in years today and I was really surprised how bad it was. I’m in Denver, CO visiting family and we’ve been mostly shopping at Safeway but stopped in a Sprouts we were driving by. The bakery was particularly pathetic — at least from what I saw, Safeway’s bakery was way better. Sprouts didn’t even have cakes, as far as I could tell? Just a few squares of really sad-looking vanilla frosted vanilla cake. The muffins were weirdly puffy and light and Safeway’s were much better. And all the prices were $0.50 or so higher than Safeway. Most interesting, though, was that the organic grocery items were labeled with price tags featuring an italic O in an oval with the word ORGANIC under it in such a design that it could easily be mistaken for O Organics at a glance. Anyone else seen that? And does that all sound consistent with Sprouts elsewhere?

marketreportblog wrote: ↑December 31st, 2023, 6:30 pm Coming back to this thread to mention I shopped at a Sprouts for the first time in years today and I was really surprised how bad it was. I’m in Denver, CO visiting family and we’ve been mostly shopping at Safeway but stopped in a Sprouts we were driving by. The bakery was particularly pathetic — at least from what I saw, Safeway’s bakery was way better. Sprouts didn’t even have cakes, as far as I could tell? Just a few squares of really sad-looking vanilla frosted vanilla cake. The muffins were weirdly puffy and light and Safeway’s were much better. And all the prices were $0.50 or so higher than Safeway. Most interesting, though, was that the organic grocery items were labeled with price tags featuring an italic O in an oval with the word ORGANIC under it in such a design that it could easily be mistaken for O Organics at a glance. Anyone else seen that? And does that all sound consistent with Sprouts elsewhere?

Yes, this is pretty typical for Sprouts. Bakery does not have available store packaged cakes other than slices. There are some thaw and sell larger cakes usually gluten free or something or some other specialty available. I'm not sure if they take orders for cakes, I've never asked or seen any marketing for it. Their muffins used to be pretty good, but they usually don't look good and haven't for years, and the price has shot way up to 5.99/4 and something like 1.79/1, so I haven't bought them in a while; I did get some Pumpkin ones 4ct .99 around Halloween and they still had 4 days left before sell by but were not good, I ate about 1/4 of one and threw the rest away.

I'll have to look at the tag, I've seen their tags that highlight Organic, but never made the connection to O Organics.

I also find Sprouts produce to be pretty terrible (especially for what they are charging); stuff often doesn't look fresh and the department doesn't have nearly the amount of labor or promotion it once did. I also find their meat to be quite terrible again freshness issues and way too high of a price for what they are selling.

I guess their grocery aisles are okay and nutrition area will do in a pinch.

I've seen some stores in SoCal and Las Vegas the past year that still have very nice looking produce departments. Wasn't impressed in AZ either and that is where their headquarters is.

Sprouts keeps going down in quality. The Sprouts cake slices used to be decent, but recently they seem really stale. They sit out for days and just keep getting even more stale. Many of them are labeled wrong with the incorrect flavors. I bought what I thought was pumpkin, but it was apple. I am allergic to apples and got a bad case of hives.

Bakery can often be poorly stocked with many items out of stock for days.

After Christmas, many shelves have remained empty. It looked like a scene from right when COVID-19 first appeared and people emptied out the grocery stores.

marketreportblog wrote: ↑December 31st, 2023, 6:30 pm Coming back to this thread to mention I shopped at a Sprouts for the first time in years today and I was really surprised how bad it was. I’m in Denver, CO visiting family

Also I suggest you try Tony's if nearby. Meat/bakery/deli the main attributes there.

marketreportblog wrote: ↑December 31st, 2023, 6:30 pm Coming back to this thread to mention I shopped at a Sprouts for the first time in years today and I was really surprised how bad it was. I’m in Denver, CO visiting family and we’ve been mostly shopping at Safeway but stopped in a Sprouts we were driving by. The bakery was particularly pathetic — at least from what I saw, Safeway’s bakery was way better. Sprouts didn’t even have cakes, as far as I could tell? Just a few squares of really sad-looking vanilla frosted vanilla cake. The muffins were weirdly puffy and light and Safeway’s were much better. And all the prices were $0.50 or so higher than Safeway. Most interesting, though, was that the organic grocery items were labeled with price tags featuring an italic O in an oval with the word ORGANIC under it in such a design that it could easily be mistaken for O Organics at a glance. Anyone else seen that? And does that all sound consistent with Sprouts elsewhere?

Yep, that's been my experience!