STEELE'S EXPANDS NATURAL FOODS TO OFFER ONE-STOP SHOPPING

BARBARA McDONALD

FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Steele's Markets here is increasing the number of natural foods products it offers, in existing units and two new units opened this summer.

According to Donna Visocky, spokeswoman for the chain, the new unit in Niwot, Colo., has a good selection of natural foods, as do the three units here.

"We are mainstream, and we know we have split shoppers who will buy regular groceries from us and then go to Alfalfa's," she said. By offering more natural products, Steele's is betting these shoppers will find they don't have to go anywhere else.

"The Niwot store does particularly well," Visocky said, because it is situated in a very affluent, if small, community. The store here is the smallest in the chain -- only about 15,000 square feet -- but it is doing a lot of business for a community of only 4,000 people.

Steele's has multiple vendors, but Nash Finch supplies most of its traditional grocery products, said Bob Wicker, Niwot grocery manager. Rainbow Natural Foods, Aurora, Colo., and Gourmet Awards, Dallas, bring in the organic, natural and harder-to-find products -- for example, Antoine's pasta, the Tommy Tang line and Vigo rice.

"We are getting new items in every day in grocery," Wicker said. Thirty percent of the store's 20,000 stockkeeping units are organics, he said.

Wicker commented that the Niwot store is known for friendly service and competitive prices, and for filling customer requests. "I get stacks of them," he said. One recent one was for the Eden organic brand of garbanzo beans.

The store carries 30 varieties of Allegro bulk coffee. "Bulk sells better than the can, even though it is more expensive -- $8.99 a pound," he noted.

The Niwot store opened in a building that used to be a fitness club, located in a small strip mall. Its design is very open, with "big, vaulted ceilings," Visocky said.

Steele's has six units in all, and opened a second new store this summer in the farming community of Fort Morgan, Colo.

"That is a whole different market," Visocky said. "It's not so much natural foods, but we have a strong Mexican set; a whole aisle. We will try some natural foods and see how it goes. It is untried there so far."

Another new unit is slated to open this fall, near Colorado State University. The 66,000-square-foot unit replaces a smaller existing store, and it will have a strong natural foods section.