Sprouts Farmers Market
Opened: June 7, 2024
Previous Tenants: A&P (1990s-2015)
Cooperative: none
Location: 327 NJ-35, Aberdeen, NJ
Photographed: June 22, 2024
It's been a while since we've seen a Sprouts! The Phoenix-based natural food store chain has just opened its third New Jersey location, this one near the shore in central Jersey. (The other two, in
Marlton and part of a former
SuperFresh in Haddonfield, are both in Philadelphia suburbs.) I was really excited to find the Marlton location by chance, but having returned to Sprouts a few more times in the years since, I'm just not sure the store is quite as good as I remember. Still, it's a nice place with a lot of good products. But I think overall, it falls into the uncomfortable middle ground of being too high-priced and not being specialized enough. A dedicated natural food store, such as many of the independent natural food stores we've toured, can price its products a little higher because the selections are truly different from mainstream supermarkets. But Sprouts is trying to position itself as a bit more mainstream, while the prices don't quite match that.
I have other issues, too, such as the "local" promotion (I don't know that I saw a single local item in the store, even in packaged grocery where it would be easy to throw in quite a few local brands). But by and large, this is a nice store and I'm glad to see Sprouts coming into New Jersey. Bulk foods, produce, and natural HABA are by far their strengths, and this store does all of those quite well.
Not to mention, with mainstream supermarkets clearly struggling and disappearing (still waiting on that list of Stop & Shop closures that they claim is coming...), I'm always glad to see more competition coming into the area, even if it's more specialized. (Similarly, Grocery Outlet has been and continues to open across the southern part of New Jersey, and that, too, is a welcome addition to the mix.)
The store is brand-new but carved out of half of a
former A&P. This is in the Cliffwood section of Aberdeen Township, a bit isolated from the rest of the town, where the
ShopRite and
Stop & Shop are.
Meat and seafood are in the front right corner, with deli and bakery behind them. These service/perishables departments are all extremely small (I'm not even sure whether there's an in-store bakery; there's no service counter for it), with bulk foods in the front-center of the store. Produce takes up the back-center of the supermarket, with grocery aisles and dairy/frozen on the left side. HABA is in the front left corner.
It's a shame that Sprouts doesn't seem to have a handle on running quality perimeter departments, other than produce. This store would be so much better if the meat, seafood, and deli/bakery were outstanding rather than just adequate.
Packaged prepared foods behind the service counters...
And here we can turn around and look up to the front of the store, via the impressively large bulk foods department.
Produce is the largest department in the store, at the back of the main supermarket. You can see the grocery aisles to the left and the blue signage for dairy/frozen.
The produce is attractively displayed, but again, I didn't see any amazing produce or anything local at all. I know it's early in the season, but still. I shopped at a nearby Whole Foods later and was thoroughly impressed with their produce -- it was all extremely fresh and rather reasonably priced, shockingly.
Packaged produce takes us into the grocery aisles in the back left corner of the store. As you can see here, the grocery aisles run side to side, so they're very short. Dairy/frozen are on the left side wall of the store.
I do like the decor, and I think overall the store is quite nice.
The grocery aisles do have a range of choices, but it felt a bit like if Walmart tried to run a natural food store. Sure, there are organic choices and other specialty items, but the selection felt very mainstream, and not that different from what you'd probably be able to get at a large ShopRite like the one here in Aberdeen -- but with noticeably higher pricing. I was hoping for either a more specialized selection or lower prices.
Looking up towards the front of the store.
I'll say again, though, more competition is always better. I'm all for any newcomers into the market -- if they do a good job and don't hog real estate and then sit on empty unopened stores, ahem Amazon Fresh -- because it makes everyone take stock of what they're doing and, a lot of the time, run their own stores just a little bit better.
The HABA department is quite large, which is good -- the selection here seemed much more specialty than a ShopRite or other mainstream supermarket's HABA department.
Sprouts definitely has some serious strengths, to be sure.
And another one of those major strengths? The enormous bulk foods department, front and center in the store. Beans, grains, nuts, and candies abound in the several aisles dedicated to bulk foods.
And then the front-end is in front of that.
I was happy to see a new Sprouts in New Jersey, and I do hope to see more -- but I also hope they improve a few of the idiosyncrasies with their format.
And don't forget today's other posts!
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