Organic grocer Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (Nasdaq: SFM) this month unveiled its new 337,000-square-foot distribution center in Fullerton, nearly a year after it signed its lease for the newly-built facility.
The company invested millions of dollars into its building at Goodman Logistics Center Fullerton, a 1.5 million-square-foot logistics facility also leased to Samsung and Bandai Namco.
The four-building logistics complex, a former Kimberly-Clark Corp. manufacturing site, is just north of the Riverside (91) Freeway along Orangethorpe Avenue. It’s the largest new industrial project built in the county in several years.
“California is such a great hub for sourcing produce,” Sprouts CEO Jack Sinclair said at the distribution center’s opening event. This facility, which officials say is conveniently located near Sprouts’ produce vendors, is “a stepping stone to getting where we need to be, which is the best produce [market] in the country.”
Sprouts’ new distribution center will deliver produce to over 95 of its California stores within a 250-mile radius. Officials said the company plans to eventually up that number to over 130 as Sprouts expands its California footprint.
Sprouts counts over 400 stores across 23 states. Around 20 of its stores are in Orange County.
Colton Move
Sprouts was the first major tenant reported at Goodman Logistics Center Fullerton—which was developed by Goodman North America, the Irvine-based division of Australian industrial giant Goodman Group.
Sprouts’ new facility is the largest industrial warehouse in its portfolio by a wide margin, according to regulatory filings. As of early January, the company’s largest distribution centers ran no more than 134,000 square feet.
The company’s new distribution center includes docks, cold storage and fruit ripening rooms for avocados and bananas. Solar panels will also be used to power the building.
By moving from its old facility in Colton, Sprouts is saving around 725,000 miles from current delivery routes due to its closer proximity to stores, officials said.
Other Sprouts distribution centers are in Union City, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Georgia.
The new “distribution centers will allow us to bring fresher products to our customer base, while providing capacity for growth in those markets for years to come,” Sinclair told analysts during the second-quarter conference call.
Second-quarter sales for Sprouts totaled $1.7 billion, up 6% from the year prior.
The company had a $4.3 billion market cap last week.
