Corridor sees a continuing increase in stores selling fresh produce, specialty foods

IOWA CITY — On Wednesday, natural and organic grocery store Lucky's Market officially will open in Iowa City, making for the Boulder, Colo-based company's first Iowa store.

Lucky's may be the latest player in the Corridor, but the store faces stiff competition among other natural and organic grocers from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids.

The Fresh Market opened its first Iowa store in Cedar Rapids last fall — at about the same time New Pioneer Food Cooperative, which has been in the south end of Corridor for decades, was finishing up its expansion into Cedar Rapids.

Troy Bond, Lucky's Iowa City store director, said the Corridor's offerings for natural and organic foods may be growing rapidly in recent months. But in the end, he added, the consumer sees a benefit.

'Whenever there's somebody new in town, it's going to raise the bar and raise the expectations of customers,' he said. 'Competition makes everybody better.'

That said, New Pi general manager Matt Hartz acknowledged that added competition does have an effect on grocers.

'The food market is a fixed pie — the addition of any retailer always takes volume from all the established grocers in the market,' he said.

Lucky's Market

While new to Iowa, Boulder, Colo.-based Lucky's has been in business since 2003 and operates stores in more than 10 states.

Bond described Lucky's, located at 1668 Sycamore St., in Iowa City Marketplace, as a place to find a mix of natural and organic foods but also more conventional and familiar brands.

'We don't want to be classified as a health-food store because we are definitely not. We're focused on good food for all and access for people to have more high-quality food,' Bond said.

Lucky's will have 160 employees when it opens.

New Pioneer Food Cooperative

By far, the most established natural food grocer in the Corridor is New Pioneer Food Co-op, which was founded in Iowa City in 1971.

New Pi debuted a second store at 1101 Second St in Coralville in 2001, and in December the group opened its third store at 3338 Center Point Rd. NE in Cedar Rapids. Among the three stores, New Pi employs about 240 people.

New Pi also operates a central bakery and kitchen in North Liberty that supplies all three stores.

Hartz said the co-op's focus has been on organic and local foods from the start and has the benefit of the hometown advantage.

'We are the home team and, being a co-op — which is that we're owned by the people that shop at our stores — people have a stake in the ownership,' he said. 'We're not striving to get big, we have a small market share and that's good with us.

'We want to be the best at what we do.'

Fresh Market

The Fresh Market, headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., opened its doors at 180 Collins Rd. NE, in Cedar Rapids last October and, as with Lucky's, it was the chain's first Iowa store.

Fresh Market, founded in 1982, operates nearly 170 stores among 27 states, according to the company's website.

The store sells some harder-to-find items as well as prepared meals and baked goods. Company officials declined to comment for this article.

In a September news release, company president and CEO Craig Carlock said Fresh Market offers 'quality perishables, excellent customer service and a unique atmosphere to an expanded customer base.'

'The Fresh Market's inviting atmosphere is reminiscent of European markets,' Carlock said in the release.

Farmers markets

Tammy Neumann, administrative secretary with the Iowa City Parks and Recreation Department, said this boom in natural and organic food grocers in the area has had little impact on the city's highly successful farmers market, which operates Saturdays and Wednesdays in the Chauncey Swan Ramp and Tuesdays at Mercer Park.

In Cedar Rapids, the Downtown Farmers Market run for the remainder of the season on Saturday mornings on Aug. 1, 15, Sept. 5 and 19.

The presence of more permanent stores that stock local and natural foods actually might aid farmers market vendors, who could find new outlets for their products, Neumann said.

'I guess my hope is some of our farmers-market vendors might actually benefit from them being here,' she said. 'I really don't expect it to have a negative effect on our market.'

Neumann added that the increased interest in the Corridor by natural food vendors isn't all that surprising.

'I think in Iowa City we have a lot of the community that is very conscious of buying local and local foods in general,' she said.