Sierra Center Boulevard

Earth Fare, a North Carolina-based grocer, opened its 51st store with special deals and fanfare at Cypress Creek Town Center last week.

The 24,000-square-foot store, off State Road 56 and just west of Interstate 75, aims to promote the health and well-being of its customers by selling an assortment of healthy foods, said Frank Scorpiniti, president and CEO, in an interview with The Laker/Lutz News.

“We’re pretty enthusiastic that because we are a philosophy-guided company, when we look across the retail landscape, there are no other food retailers doing what Earth Fare does,” Scorpiniti said. Earth Fare plans to open a total of eight to 10 stores in the greater Tampa area.

The store which opened last week, at 25535 Sierra Center Blvd., in Lutz, has 107 employees. It is the fourth store that the company has opened in the general Tampa Bay area in recent years.

Earth Fare also has opened stores in Seminole, Oldsmar and Lakewood Ranch, and within weeks will open stores in Boynton Beach and downtown Orlando.

“We see an opportunity for our brand to fill a void in the marketplace,” Scorpiniti said.

“Americans, just generally, are seeking healthier alternatives to feed their families and their children,” Scorpiniti explained. “We have found that there is a lot of need of what we bring to communities.

“We don’t want to be preachy. That’s not our mission here. Our mission is to make health and wellness easy to come by, at Earth Fare,” he said.

“Our first litmus test is whether or not what we sell is healthy,” he added. If it’s not, it doesn’t make the cut.

The grocery chain’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Angela Hind helps assure that Earth Fare  meets that commitment, Scorpiniti said.

“She and I have become very close colleagues in helping refine Earth Fare’s assortment, and understanding that this is a journey. We’re all learning still. But, when we look across North America, no one else is doing this,” Scorpiniti said.

Reading labels not required
Earth Fare pledges that its foods are free of:

• Added hormones
• Antibiotics
• Artificial fats and trans-fats
• High fructose corn syrup
• Artificial preservatives
• Bleached or bromated flour
• Artificial colors or flavors

The grocer also maintains a Boot List on its website, listing all of the food ingredients it has banned from its stores.

Besides the groceries it sells, the store has an organic juice bar, a  salad bar, a hot foods bar, a pizza station, a sandwich counter and packaged meals-to-go. It also has a café.

People might not view pizza as being healthy, Scorpiniti said. But, Earth Fare’s version is made with organic dough. It uses sauce with tomatoes from Italy, when the tomatoes are at their sweetest — foregoing the common practice of adding sugar to the sauce.

The cheese comes from Italy, too, and the pepperoni has no nitrates or nitrites, Scorpiniti said.

“Dare I say, it’s an amazing-tasting pizza,” he added.

On opening day, customers appeared to be enthusiastic about having a new grocery option.

“It’s proximity is really great,” said Lynn Pabst, who is retired and lives in Lutz. “To be able to get things that are fresh and healthy, and to promote that kind of style of living is very important, and it’s nice to have in our community.”

C. Walker, who lives in Wesley Chapel, likes the choices that the store offers.

“I’m a plant-based eater, and they have everything I need in this store,” she said, adding that now she won’t have to drive out her community to get what she wants.

Interest in the store was apparent in the early afternoon on Day 2, when it buzzed with customers. Shoppers perused shelves. They added fruits, vegetables, rotisserie chickens and other items to their carts. Others took a break to grab a bite, and ate it on the patio.

Earth Fare has come a long way since it debuted in Asheville, as a 1,200-square-foot store called Dinner for Earth. It was the city’s first health food store, and it offered a modest selection of organic dried bulk goods and wellness process.

Over time, it has opened locations from Portage, Michigan to Palm Beach Gardens.

Its assortment has evolved, but its commitment to healthy food has not wavered, Scorpiniti said.

The grocer promises its customers that they can shop in every aisle of the store without ever needing to read a label, and they can be confident that their food selection will be healthy, the executive added.

He also touched on what he considers to be a misperception when it comes to the price of healthy foods.

“I think health and wellness eating has sometimes created this connotation that you have to pay a lot more to be healthy in the food you buy,” Scorpiniti said.

Earth Fare thinks it can provide, with a curated assortment in a 24,000-square-foot store,

“a nice, bright, shoppable, friendly store,” and do it efficiently, in order to sell a 98-cent, non-GMO, baguette, every day, and a $5 rotisserie chicken, every day, Scorpiniti said.

As a newcomer to the area, the company also has reached out to learn what the community needs from Earth Fare, he added. It has a 19-member community advisory panel, which provided  suggestions regarding items to stock on store shelves, and offered input on what local cause the store should support. In this case, it is the New Tampa YMCA, which received a $3,000 check from the grocer.

When Earth Fare opens a new location, it’s a big day for the company, the president and CEO said.

He said he typically gives the new team a pep talk.

In essence, his message to them is this: “This is a different mission. It looks like we’re selling groceries, but we’re changing lives.”

Earth Fare, a 24,000-square-foot healthy food supermarket
Where: 25535 Sierra Center Blvd., in Lutz
When: Hours are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., daily
Details: The store offers a wide selection of healthy fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and other foods. Its services include delivery and catering.
Earth Fare’s Lutz/Wesley Chapel location opened last week. It has 107 employees.

Earth Fare’s sustainable stores
Earth Fare:

• Uses the heat generated from cooling its freezers and refrigerators to heat its water
• Has polished concrete floors to eliminate the need for harsh cleaning chemicals
• Is built with a reflective roof to reduce cooling costs in warmer months
• Uses LED bulbs, which consume 60 percent to 75 percent less energy
• Uses pure water, filtered through reverse osmosis, throughout the store — including in its produce misters

Christine Holtzman contributed to this report

Published February 27, 2019