Retail News

Criticism from analysts has “spiked” Wild Oats Markets’(OATS) enthusiasm, said OATS president Jim Lee in the Boulder, Colo., Daily Camera. “Frankly, we’re excited,” Lee said. “It’s becoming a rallying point here. Everybody is really excited about some of these investments for additional staff, training and marketing.”

Separately, Wild Oats on Nov. 1 closed its Santa Fe, N.M., Alfalfa’s store. The closure is being blamed on a sales loss due, in part, to the opening of a Whole Foods Market (WFMI) there in December 1999.

According to the Chicago Sun Times, Whole Foods’ 40,000-sq.-ft. store in Deerfield, Ill., is one of the largest Whole Foods in the Midwest. At the store, customers can grind flour, roast coffee beans and host parties in the party room.

Bread & Circus and Fresh Fields/Whole Foods Market stores in the Northeast have stopped selling Osetra, Sevruga and Beluga caviar because the wild sturgeon stocks are endangered and close to extinction. The store will replace the caviar with a farm-raised sturgeon caviar grown in California.

According to Shaw’s supermarket chain, its Taunton, Mass., location is the prototype for all future, new and remodeled Shaw’s in New England. The store, which is owned by London-based J. Sainsbury PLC, boasts large ethnic and natural foods sections.

After a successful test run of organic and natural products, Super Foodtown in Ocean, N.J., plans to expand its Nature’s Harvest store-within-a-store concept that features bulk foods and cold cases for organic dairy and natural meats.