PHOENIX – Phoenix-based Sprouts Farmers Market said it plans to open 30 more stores but close 11 over the next months as it continues to move away from a larger footprint.

The healthful-food grocery chain didn’t specify during a conference call last week which stores will close, but did say at least one will go in the first quarter after its lease expires.

The chain has more than 370 stores in 23 states, including Arizona, California and Florida.

“The closing stores, on average, are approximately 30% larger than our current prototype and are underperforming financially,” Chief Financial Officer Chip Molloy said in the call.

“As we go forward … we’re not opening up 30,000, 40,000 square-foot stores,” he said.

The remaining stores targeted will be shut down during the second quarter.

Affected employees will be transferred to other stores if they wish, he added.

The smaller sites will be around 23,000 square feet.

“We’ve only really got that moving in the last 6 to 9 months relative to the strategy that we outlined two or three years ago,” Chief Executive Officer Jack Sinclair said.

He said the company would have acted sooner to close the stores but didn’t think it was appropriate to do so during the pandemic “in terms of giving access to healthy foods.”

Sinclair said the Sprouts brand hit $1 billion in sales late last year.

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