Sunflower and Sprouts to Merge

[KingU8ol0Soopers]

http://www.gazette.com/articles/sprouts ... lower.html

Sunflower Farmer's Market and Sprouts Farmer's Market have announced that they are "joining forces" and merging together. Sunflower has 35 stores in 7 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma and Texas). Sprouts has over 100 stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Texas. The deal is expected to close in mid-spring, and when it does, the stores will be operated under the Sprouts banner. There is a website that explains everything - http://www.1farmersmarket.com/.



This is a picture of my local Sunflower store. (This store used to be a Long's. It is in a strip mall with a former Albertson's that is now an antique mall.) I go there sometimes since they have cheap food, especially produce. However, I don't go too much since the produce is often lower quality then that of what you would find at Safeway or King Soopers. I'm curious to see if that will change after the merger.

[submariner]

I'm curious to see if that will change after the merger.

I'd expect the prices to go up, but the produce quality will go up markedly as well. Henry's (and now Sprouts) has really good produce. Much better than the chain supermarkets. Worth the increase in price.

[Alpha8472]

It is unfortunate that there are so many mergers. Several years ago there was Wild Oats market and Whole Foods. Then Whole Foods bought Wild Oats and got rid of the name.

Sprouts bought Henry's Farmers Market and got rid of their name also. When there are mergers the consumer is the one that is left with fewer shopping choices. When there is less competition prices will rise and these chains will have less incentive to offer competitive pricing.

I don't particularly like the Sprouts name. When I hear sprouts, all I can think about are Brussels sprouts. When I hear Sunflower, I generally associate it with something much more positive.

That is the problem with mergers. We lose trusted store names and end up with animosity over the loss of familiar market names that we are used to.