“Sprouts offers a unique shopping experience and it is our job to tell that story to our customers,” she said.

Produce is front-and-center, at the heart of Sprouts Farmers Market. The other fresh departments — meat, seafood and bakery — are also easily visible because the shelves are a lower profile than most stores, and it is impossible not to see the very large health and wellness sections, which dwarf the size of most large grocery stores.

Gmelich said the Forager Finds destination is unlike any other specialty retailer, which debuts hundreds of new items before they get full placement in-aisle, highlights the unique nature of Sprouts assortment and appeals to our customer’s forager spirit. 

She added that it is very intentional that Sprouts has the look and feel of a seven-day-a-week farmers market, as its banner name suggests.  Sprouts customers love that the store feels “calm and inviting” and is more like a community, just like your local farmer’s market.

Gmelich revealed that there are two main types of Sprouts shoppers.

There is the Health Enthusiast who is laser focused on better-for-you options and cares very much about attributes like organic and gluten free. These shoppers actively search for healthy and nutritious items and are pre-committed to the Sprouts overall proposition. 

The second tranche of customers fall under the category of selective shoppers. These customers tend to be higher-end consumers who will drive out of their way to find unique ingredients and the quality they want.

Gmelich said both groups are natural targets for Sprouts, which emphasizes its health and wellness products along with its unique assortment of items. The marketing campaigns are tailored to these groups with the most consistent messaging emphasizing what makes Sprouts different.  Gmelich stated that for many Sprouts customers, it’s an important “complimentary stop” for many of their customers. Sprouts is a specialty retailer with many shoppers also frequenting a conventional retail grocery outlet for many of their staple items that Sprouts doesn’t carry. 

This creates marketing opportunities to target Sprouts customers for the things they can’t find anywhere else, like the best selection of organic produce or those “hard to find items.”   

Recently, Sprouts launched Sprouts Rewards, its new loyalty program designed to help customers save and discover. The program delivers tailored offers and product recommendations and allows customers to earn points that can be redeemed for savings on future purchases. 

Gmelich described Sprouts as a data driven organization focused on using customer insights to create a more relevant shopping experience.  The company is prioritizing adoption of the program by emphasizing tangible benefits and perks, while leveraging the resulting data to sharpen customer communications. “How great will it be when a gluten-free customer doesn’t receive promotions for products she can’t eat, or a vegan no longer sees advertisements for meat?” she offered.

Sprouts Rewards operates on a points-based structure, with customers accumulating points by scanning at checkout.  

The department also leans into unique marketing opportunities when they arise: about two years ago, Sprouts executives were approached by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, a longtime Sprouts fan and frequent shopper, about filming in-store scenes for his new Apple TV series Pluribus. While closing a store for two days would typically be a non-starter, Sprouts ultimately approved the request — filmed at a New Mexico location Gilligan regularly visits. The scenes went on to appear in two episodes, including a pair of pivotal moments that garnered great attention in trade media and on social media. 

Gmelich said that type of marketing helps plant seeds for future customers and did result in an uptick in sales for that particular Sprouts location that has endured beyond the airing of the original show. She added that as a streaming show, the Sprouts connection will be seen over and over again by new Pluribus viewers, which has the potential of creating a long-lasting residual effect.

While its appearance with Apple TV was an organic moment, Sprouts connects with customers through other avenues, particularly in women’s sports and when opening new stores as well.  

Through Sprouts’ PowHERed by platform, the grocer is committed to investing in female athletes at the collegiate and professional levels to advance equity in women’s sports — an especially natural fit given that more than 60 percent of Sprouts customers are women. The grocer is the back-of-jersey sponsor for Angel City Football Club in the National Women’s Soccer League, the official healthy grocer of the SEC and Big 12 conferences, and has sponsored more than 160 name, image and likeness deals with college female athletes, linking performance on the field with everyday wellness needs off the field.  

Sprouts has opened more than 30 stores annually across the country in the past few years and is on pace to eclipse 500-plus stores by the end of 2026. Each new store opening presents opportunities to connect with local communities, nonprofit organizations and local and regional farms to help customers live and eat better. 

Occasionally, the marketing department gets a great boost from a campaign that it didn’t even originate. Gmelich said there is no better marketing than when a customer shoots a video and it goes viral. That occurred in mid-November when a video appeared on Instagram touting the Lucy Glo apple, which Sprouts was first to market with and frequently promotes. 

The original video has garnered 4 million viewers and has sparked many copycat videos taken by others and streamed on other platforms.