After years as a bit player in the Twin Cities, Whole Foods is in the midst of a building boom.
The nation’s largest natural and organic supermarket chain unveiled a new store Wednesday in Maple Grove and expects a downtown Minneapolis location to open in early fall. That would bring to six the number of Whole Foods markets in the Twin Cities, and grocery industry analysts say to look for more.
“They’ve set a goal of 1,000 [nationally] over the next decade,” said Ken Perkins, a stock analyst at Morningstar. Whole Foods currently has just over 350 stores, but it’s building out at least 30 new stores annually.
When it targets new locations, the company looks for “high incomes and highly educated people,” Perkins said. Relative to many other metro areas, the Twin Cities has both.
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