JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The first Sprouts Farmers Market in Jacksonville opened Wednesday.
The grocery store offering organic foods is at the old Best Buy location on Town Center Parkway in the Markets at Town Center, near the St. Johns Town Center.
"We're a full-service grocery store, but we really advocate for healthy living for less. So we think that everyday shoppers should have access to healthy foods, starting with fresh produce," said Sprouts spokesperson Kalia Pang. "But we're a full shop. So we have a butcher shop that's full service, a full-service deli. We have a great dairy station, a bakery. We're different in that we have everything that you can need to get your weekly shopping list done, but a lot of natural organic brands in between. So (there's) something new for everyone to discover and everything is at everyday prices."
PHOTOS: Shoppers told News4Jax during Wednesday's grand opening that Jacksonville's Southside needed a store like this.
"We've been waiting for it for a long time because I like to get into the healthy thing, you know?" said Sprouts shopper Linda Miller. "And so St. John's Town Center area has been missing this type of store, so, yes, we're very excited and I will be supporting it for sure."
The new grocery store brought 130 jobs to the area, the Jacksonville Daily Record reports.
According to Sprouts, it won't let food go to waste. It will donate unsold groceries to Feeding Northeast Florida, local cattle farms and composting facilities.
"We are big-time farm fresh and public shoppers," Sprouts shopper Tarik Mowatt said. "Just having an area like this where it's the vibe, and all the different sorts of healthy organic things are really nice to have with us. It just offers a lot of variety and a lot of things that we don't normally have in our normal day groceries."
Sprouts plans to open a second location in Jacksonville off Beach Boulevard in the future, according to the Daily Record.