Sprouts Farmers Market sets Port Charlotte opening date

Sprouts Farmers Market will open its new Port Charlotte store Jan. 12.

The Arizona grocery store chain will mark the occasion with a ceremonial ribbon cutting at 6:45 a.m. and follow that up with what it is calling a weekend of events. Among those are a pop-up party outside the store Friday, Saturday and Sunday and a product-filled reusable bag giveaway for the first 100 customers Friday and Saturday.

The new store is at 2000 Tamiami Trail the Murdock Carousel shopping center.

Among what shoppers will find those first few days will be a tasting bar, games and a “guess the weight” contest of an oversized piece of produce.

But there is a serious side to the new store as well. Sprouts says it will source produce from local farmers, including Astin Strawberry Exchange, Brooks Tropicals and Noble Citrus, and that it will donate groceries that are unfit for sale to the Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida.

The Port Charlotte location is one of three stores Sprouts plans to open in January. One each will open in Miami and in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C. When the Miami store opens Jan. 19, Sprouts will have more stores in Florida (45) than in 21 other states it operates in and an equal amount to the number of stores in its home state of Arizona.

In total, it has about 400 stores and employs 31,000. Regionally, it has 13 stores in the Tampa Bay market and one each in Estero, Sarasota, Naples, Bradenton, Cape Coral and Fort Myers.