Natural Grocers schedules Nov. 12 opening for Idaho Falls store

The old Andrew Well Drilling building on 17th Street is gone, and the ground is being prepared for a 15,000-square-foot Natural Grocers store.

Dirt is finally being moved on the site where Andrew Well Drilling used to be, to make room for Natural Grocers, a 58-year-old chain based in Colorado. The 15,000-square-foot store is slated to open Nov. 12, said Nancy Flynn, spokeswoman for the company.

In addition to the store, the developer, Leadership Circle, LLC, of Montrose, Colo., is seeking eventually to build a restaurant and a retail store on the 4.42 acres, but the only definite plans at the moment are for the grocery. The 4,816 square-foot-restaurant pad and 11,250-square-foot retail pad are listed with Randy Waters of Sperry Van Ness High Desert.

Natural Grocers has 68 stores in 12 states, with six more scheduled to open this year. In 2011 it opened stores in Boise and Missoula, and most recently it opened a store in Helena, in December.

"We really cater to specialty diets, gluten-free, non GMO (genetically modified organisms)," Flynn said. Because of their small footprint (a Whole Foods store, by contrast, is typically twice the size) and their emphasis on personal communication and education rather than advertising, they are able to keep their costs down. "We feel like we're the label-readers in the market," Flynn said.

When it opens, the store will employ around 25 people. All the produce they sell is USDA-certified organic, and Flynn said they buy local produce "every chance we get.

Here is a link to its Web site: http://www.naturalgrocers.com/, and there is a link on the site for anyone who has organic crops to sell.