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GOURMET NEWS FEBRUARY 2019 www.gourmetnews.com RETAILER NEWS 9 Sprouts Farmers Market Plans 30 New Stores Sprouts Farmers Market, one of the fastest- growing retailers in the country, today an- nounced nine new stores scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2019 and plans to open approximately 30 stores in 2019. Sprouts currently operates more than 300 stores in 19 states. The locations scheduled to open in the second quarter of this year include the healthy grocer's entry into three new mar- kets: Louisiana, New Jersey and Virginia. Four stores will feature an enhanced layout that caters to the latest shopper trends through optimized customer engage- ment. New Sprouts stores opening in the sec- ond quarter of 2019 include one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; one in Herndon, Vir- ginia; one in Jacksonville, Florida; one in Los Angeles, California; one in Marlton, New Jersey; one in Mesa, Arizona; one in Oviedo, Florida, one in San Jose, Califor- nia and one in San Luis Obispo, Califor- nia. The Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Oviedo and San Luis Obispo stores will feature Sprouts' newest operational and design enhancements that highlight department destinations and promote customer en- gagement throughout the store. The de- sign, which maintains center-store focus on produce, debuted last year in five lo- cations. Sprouts continues to grow as a destination for high-quality meat and seafood, and guests will enjoy eye-catch- ing marquee signage and display cases at The Butcher Shop and Fish Market that emphasize the department's knowledge- able and personal service. Additionally, The Market Corner Deli in the enhanced stores will feature a detached, rectangu- lar island to optimize customer service and convenience by offering made-to- order sandwiches, a salad bar, prepared foods, sushi made in-store and fresh juice. Each new store will bring approxi- mately 140 new career opportunities to its local neighborhood. Sprouts offers com- petitive pay, team member discounts, a fun and rewarding culture, and numerous ca- reer advancement opportunities. Sprouts continues to accelerate investments in team members, including enhanced pay, benefits, leadership development and recognition. GN Sunflower Bakery Continued from PAGE 1 Bakery in their Washington, D.C. area, ex- cept that they'd focus on job training for students who would then be prepared to land jobs in the community – sometimes as bakers, sometimes in supermarkets or foodservice, sometimes in a local coffee shop. "The point is to give people the op- portunity to be able to grow and thrive with whatever they are willing to try," Mil- ner said. "We have some people who are to- tally nonverbal who can pipe beautifully and who can follow a recipe. Once they know they can do it, they can decide if they want to do more of it." The two started their bakery in 2010 in a 1,200 square foot space in Gaithersburg, Maryland, that was recommended chiefly by its affordability. Five years later, they opened a tiny cafe in a Rockville, Maryland, office build- ing, where they have space for three tables in the cafe plus an- other two outside in the build- ing's lobby area. The cafe's students are trained to interact with customers, and they learn how to do barista duties and to operate the point of sale system. "We hadn't counted on how much customers love coming to the cafe for a great start to their day," Milner said. "They get good service, and they're learning what people can do. The stu- dents with disabilities are providing a valuable serv- ice.... It's a very loyal clien- tele in and around that office building." Particularly popular items include mandel bread, lemon bars, lemon bundt cakes and macarons. In the fall, there are apple cakes and apple pies, and a pump- kin pecan coffee cake with maple frosting is a Thanks- giving favorite. All of it's baked in that 1,200 square-foot kitchen that doubles as both training area and production facility. Sun- flower is a kosher bakery, so none of the recipes call for either butter or cream or for any other animal prod- ucts other than eggs. "Every single egg we use has to be cracked and checked for blood," Milner said. "If there's a blood spot, it's not kosher." Later this spring, Sunflower Bakery will move into a 5,000 square foot space with room for a small training kitchen as well as a bigger production kitchen and even a counter where they'll be able to do some sales of pas- tries, cookies, cakes, bars and muffins, pies and tarts as well as the breads they don't have the space to make in their current kitchen. The small training kitchen will allow Sunflower Bakery to open up its ServSafe classes to members of the community, to offer inclusive baking classes for children, where the bakery's youngest clients will be able to take lessons along with children who do not have learn- ing disabilities. "We will spread the positive image for what people can do," Milner said. "They're already getting plenty of attention for what they can't do." In the new bakery, as at the current facil- ity, two new students will start training every five weeks throughout the year, with the goal of giving them the skills to find a job elsewhere when they've graduated at the end of 26 weeks. "By training them and moving them out, lots of people get jobs," Milner said. "They don't all get jobs as bak- ers – they've got the basics, and they can be brought along to do so much more." The first 10 weeks of instruction focus on the basics, with the pair of new stu- dents working with a professional chef for five weeks and then moving on to instruc- tion with another chef for another five weeks to work on fluency with mise en place and working efficiently. After that 10 weeks of basic training, they get eight weeks of on-the-job training, in which they spend 15 hours in the cafe to be ex- posed to waiting on customers and how to use the point of sale system, and they get their ServSafe food handler training in addition to time in the bakery practicing the skills they learned in their first 10 weeks of the program. By the end of their first 18 weeks of their training, they can walk into the bakery for their shift, check the production board to see what they're making that day, and they know where the recipes are and where to find the ingredients and the pans. They re- view quantities with the supervising chef and get to work. They're still being super- vised, but they're actually working inde- pendently. Their final eight weeks of training is a paid internship in which they become part of the bakery's production team. They start earning a paycheck, and they start understanding how to bake on a commercial scale. They receive help with resume- writing and the job search, and they participate in mock inter- views. "During the on-the-job training and internship phases, students receive employee de- velopment training: how to call out, how to manage time, how to ask questions, how to solve problems with peers," Milner said. "They might get a job, but they won't keep the job unless they can explain how they can learn. They have to learn to ad- vocate for themselves." Sunflower Bakery gains a lit- tle more than half of its operat- ing funds through sales of its products. Some of the students pay a tuition fee for the weeks of their instruction, and some students are funded for the program by Maryland or Virginia, depending on where they live. A few students who don't qualify for state funding on the basis of need but who also can't afford tuition pay for their program through a work-study arrangement with some of the pay they start getting when they become part of the production team in the last eight weeks. "It builds their confidence, and as they build their com- petence, we have seen their lives change," Milner said. "We have seen families' lives change." GN

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