Natural foods retailer Sprouts Farmers Market plans to open 30 new stores in 2018.
The new stores will include the Phoenix-based chain’s first in the mid-Atlantic region. That store, in Ellicott City, Maryland, and eight others are set to open in the first quarter of next year. The others are in New Mexico, North Carolina, Arizona, California and Florida.
Maryland will be the 16th state with a Sprouts. The 2018 openings will bring the chain’s store total to more than 310.
Sprouts’ same-store annual sales jumped from $14 million to $18 million over the past four years, and fresh departments’ share of sales increased from 40% to more than 60%, Amin Maredia, the retailer’s CEO, said Sept. 7 at the Goldman Sachs Annual Global Retail Conference in New York.