Retail News Briefs

Earth Fare Announces Two New Stores: Ashville, NC-based natural foods retailer Earth Fare announced plans for a 17,000-sq.-ft. store in Athens, GA, to open sometime in mid-1999. Also, Earth Fare plans to open a 22,000-sq.-ft. grocery store in a former Winn Dixie store in Columbia, SC. The Columbia store will be Earth Fare’s fourth, the first to enter the Columbia marketplace since 1993, according to the city’s daily newspaper, The State. Earth Fare is waiting to sign a lease in Columbia until its plans are approved by the city, an action that was anticipated early in November. The chain currently has stores in Asheville; Greenville, SC; Charleston, SC; and an Earth Fare Café in the Life Center in Greenville.

Wild Oats Opens on-line shopping website: Currently, the site offers approximately 1,000 SKUs of Wild Oats-brand products and will be expanded next year to include other branded products. Also, OATS opened its first store in the Dallas area in November and a new Denver store on Nov. 14 on Colorado Boulevard.

Fresh Fields to Expand: Fresh Fields, the Rockville, MD-based retailer that is part of the Whole Foods Market (WFMI) chain, is in zoning-board negotiations to develop the 900 block of South Street in Philadelphia for a new store.

H-E-B Opens Second Nature’s Harvest: H-E-B Nature’s Harvest, the store-within-a-store division of H-E-B Grocery Co., will open its second unit in February in San Antonio. The existing H-E-B store in Austin, TX, one of the largest and highest-traffic sites in the H-E-B chain, has been remodeled to accommodate the Nature’s Harvest department.

NBTY Opens 200th Store: NBTY Inc. (NBTY) opened its 200th Vitamin World store in El Paso, TX, and is on target to have 240 domestic stores by the end of 1998. It plans 160 new stores in 1999, more stores than the previous company estimate of 120 stores.

Mustard Seed Market to Open Second Store: Phil and Margaret Nabors will open Akron, OH-based Mustard Seed Market’s second store in summer 1999 in Solon, OH, a suburb of Cleveland. The site will house a 37,000-sq.-ft. grocery store on the first floor and a 19,000-sq.-ft. restaurant and cooking school on the second, potentially making it the largest natural foods store in the country.