Bristol Farms CEO: New Stores 'Push the Culinary Experience'

Bristol Farms’ newest concept stores, like its La Cumbre location in Santa Barbara, Calif., which recently marked its one-year anniversary, is “not just a grocery store,” says CEO Adam Caldecott. Part European farmer’s market and part California premium food experience, the new Bristol Farms aim to be a feast for the senses and a destination to both fill a shopping cart as well as purchase a single restaurant-quality meal.

“This is version 2.0. As we continue to move forward with Bristol Farms, we’re really trying to push the culinary experience—whether by bringing more global ingredients into produce or upgrading our ready-to-eat food,” Caldecott told WGB in a recent phone interview.

The CEO added that the next iteration for Bristol Farms will be to bring QSR-style formats in-store. Caldecott envisions adding a number of concepts designed to “drive innovation and to continue to build Bristol Farms in a way that really owns the culinary space,” he said.

Adam Caldecott

The addition of indoor and outdoor seating to its new and remodeled stores will further this ambition, as will what Caldecott envisions as individual cuisine-focused QSRs—a vegan-oriented area, one specializing in chicken sandwiches, and “one along the lines of a Tender Greens concept,” he said.

“COVID changed—in both the near and midterm—how we want to engage with food. We’re looking to create a food hall experience in our new stores,” he explained.

Opening the Bristol Farms’ Santa Barbara store during a pandemic wasn’t without its challenges, but the retailer found the community was ready for something new and different in the world of food.

“For us as an experiential brand, the community looked to us as a beacon of normalcy,” Caldecott notes. “Our new format store was built around food being the star—and experiential in the sense of smells, tastes and sounds that create an environment that appeals to the consumer.”

The sense that Bristol Farms is a destination for premium food hits you when you walk in the store, says Caldecott. The open concept foodservice operations allows customers to take in the variety and freshness of what the retailer has to offer.

Bristol Farms is part of Carson, Calif.-based Good Food Holdings, which also includes Lazy Acres Natural Market, Metropolitan Market, New Seasons Market and New Leaf Community Market banners.