Henry's Farmers Market (also known as Henry's Marketplace and Henry's) was a grocery retailer that operated in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. In 2011, it started becoming part of the

Sprouts Farmers Market Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc., is a supermarket chain headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. The grocer offers a wide selection of natural and organic foods, including fresh produce, bulk foods, vitamins and supplements, packaged groceries, meat ...

chain with a full acquisition taking place by early- to mid-2013.

History

Henry’s Farmers Market was an operator of natural-foods stores that suggest a shopping experience similar to the produce stands and neighborhood butchers of the 1950s. Henry’s stores offered produce, vitamins and supplements, and all-natural foods. The company was established in 1943 when Henry Boney and his family opened a fruit stand on a street corner in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. Henry's first store in

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

opened in Elk Grove on August 18, 2010. In December 2010, Henry's announced plans to open its first

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...

store in the downtown area, in 2011. However, a week after the announcement, plans for the Boise store were stalled.

Acquisitions

The Henry's chain included 23 stores in Southern California and one in Northern California. In 1999, Wild Oats Markets, Inc. acquired Henry's Marketplace from the Henry Boney Family. Following a highly debated merger in August 2007, Wild Oats was acquired by

Whole Foods Market Whole Foods Market IP, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon, is an upscale American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. A US ...

. Soon thereafter, in October 2007, Whole Foods Market sold all 35 Henry's Farmers Market and Sun Harvest Market stores to a subsidiary of Los Angeles grocer

Smart & Final Smart & Final is a chain of warehouse-style food and supply stores based in Commerce, California, which developed through a series of mergers and expansions. The oldest of the combined companies, Hellman-Haas Grocery, was founded in 1871 in Los ...

, Inc., for $166 million. Earlier in 2007, Smart & Final had been acquired by the private equity firm

Apollo Management Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...

. Sprouts, an Arizona-based market, is the second specialty market brand developed by the Henry Boney family. The first store opened in

Chandler, Arizona Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). It is bordered to the north and west by Tempe, to the north by Mesa, to the west by Phoenix, to the ...

in 2002. In early 2011, Sprouts announced that it would be merging Sprouts and Henry's Farmers Market. The combined company, which operates under the name Sprouts Farmers Market, had 98 stores and more than 7,000 employees at the time the transaction closed in the second quarter of 2011.

References

{{Supermarkets of the United States Defunct supermarkets of the United States Retail companies established in 1943 Companies based in Phoenix, Arizona Health food stores Private equity portfolio companies