Business

Looking for organic food deals? Earth Fare is closing and clearing shelves

By Bill Moss, Published: February 3, 2020

Earth Fare, the Fletcher-based organic supermarket chain, announced Monday that it is closing all its stores and beginning  inventory liquidation sales.

"Earth Fare has been proud to serve the natural and organic grocery market, and the decision to begin the process of closing our stores was not entered into lightly," the company said in a news release. "We'd like to thank our Team Members for their commitment and dedication to serving our customers, and our vendors and suppliers for their partnership."

The grocery chain operates stores in Westgate shopping center and on Hendersonville Road in Asheville and owns around 50 nationwide.

Pursuant to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), all employees have been notified of the impending closure of the company's stores and corporate office. During this time, the company will continue to pursue a sale of assets, in whole or in parts.

Founded in 1975 by Roger Derrough, Earth Fare stores sell some 26,000 natural and organic products plus vitamins and herbs, operate cafes and juice bars and have deli service and cooking classes, according to a D&B Hoovers business profile.

Over the course of the past few years, the company has implemented numerous strategic initiatives aimed at growth and expansion and enhancing the customer experience but ultimately found that the efforts fell short.

"While many of these initiatives improved the business, continued challenges in the retail industry impeded the company's progress as well as its ability to refinance its debt," the company said. "As a result, Earth Fare is not in a financial position to continue to operate on a go-forward basis. As such, we have made the difficult, but necessary decision to commence inventory liquidation sales while we continue to engage in a process to find potential suitors for our stores."

"The inventory liquidation sales will feature a truly outstanding assortment of merchandise at very significant price reductions," the company said. "We encourage shoppers to visit their nearby location now and take advantage of these savings before it's too late. Store fixtures are also available for sale as part of this process."