Sprouts Farmers Market names James Bahrenburg chief technology officer

Sprouts Farmers Market on Monday named food retail veteran James Bahrenburg chief technology officer.

Bahrenburg comes to the specialty grocer after serving as chief information officer of Good Food Holdings, the parent of grocers Bristol Farms, Lazy Acres Natural Market, Metropolitan Market, New Seasons Market and New Leaf Community Markets, a post he held since 2019.

Before that, he worked for a dozen years with discounter 99 Cents Only Stores, including serving as SVP-CIO from 2016 to 2019 and VP of business process and IT planning from 2010 to 2015. All told, he has more than 35 years of experience in information technology.

“Jim’s deep experience in retail technology leadership will be an invaluable resource as we enhance our platforms to support the continued execution of our long-term growth strategy,” Sprouts’ CEO Jack Sinclair said in a statement.

Sprouts, which recently opened its 400th store, is also on the hunt for a new CFO. Lawrence “Chip” Molloy recently announced his pending departure, scheduled for the end of the year, after a decade with the grocer.

The Phoenix-based grocer said last month that it sees lots of opportunity to steal a greater share of its core shoppers’ dollars, especially through digital channels.

Sprouts said it has seen growth across Instacart, DoorDash and its own channels.

“We’re creating this omnichannel customer who’s very in tune with the curated assortment that we’ve got and the data that I have got, and we’ll get more data going forward,” Sinclair told analysts. “But the data that we’ve got so far suggests that we’re growing share with those target customers, which has always been the intent since we really pivoted the strategy around this target customer base.”

Sprouts employs 31,000 people across 23 states.