Sprouts Farmers Market 2013 Annual Report Download - page 9

Table of Contents
Passionate and experienced management team with proven track record . Since inception, we have been dedicated to
delivering “Healthy Living for Less.” Our passion and commitment is shared by team members throughout the entire organization,
from our stores to our corporate office. Our executive management team has extensive experience in the grocery and food retail
industry, and deep roots in organic, natural and specialty food retail. Our President and Chief Executive Officer, Doug Sanders,
began with our company in 2002 with the first Sprouts store and has over 28 years of experience in the grocery industry. Our Chief
Operating Officer, Jim Nielsen, has over 25 years of experience in the grocery industry, including most recently as the President of
Henry’s Farmers Market. Our Chief Financial Officer, Amin Maredia, has over 18 years of accounting and financial experience,
including six years of senior level experience at Burger King Holdings, one of the world’s largest food retailers. In addition, our
executive management is supported by a deep team comprised of industry veterans across all key functional areas. With recent
investments in people, systems and other infrastructure, we believe we are well-positioned to achieve our future growth plans.
Growing Our Business
We believe we have significant opportunities to continue to grow our store base, drive comparable store sales growth,
enhance our operating margins and grow brand awareness. We are pursuing a number of strategies designed to continue our
growth and strong financial performance, including:
Expand our store base. We intend to continue expanding our store base by pursuing new store openings in existing markets,
expanding into adjacent markets, and penetrating new markets. In 2013, we entered into leases for additional stores in several new
markets, including the Houston and Kansas City metropolitan areas, as well as in many of our existing markets. We believe we are
a desirable tenant for developers and landlords based on our historical and projected growth, the high customer traffic generated by
our stores, and our lifestyle positioning. These attributes along with our rigorous real estate selection process help us to efficiently
source new, high-quality store locations. From our founding in 2002 through December 29, 2013, we opened 91 new stores while
successfully rebranding 43 Henry’s Farmers Markets (“Henry’s”) and 39 Sunflower Farmers Market (“Sunflower”) stores to the
Sprouts banner. On a combined basis, Sprouts, Henry’s and Sunflower opened an average of 17 stores per year from fiscal 2008
through fiscal 2013. We expect to continue to expand our store base with 22-24 store openings planned in fiscal 2014, of which
three have opened as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and we intend to achieve 12% or more annual new store
growth over at least the next five years.
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