Fresh Thyme market opens store in West Des Moines

Fresh Thyme Farmers Market gave away free groceries Wednesday to celebrate the opening of its first Iowa store, a 30,000-square-foot market in West Des Moines.

Billed as somewhere between a conventional supermarket and a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's — both of which have stores in West Des Moines — Fresh Thyme emphasizes fresh and organic produce, along with meat, dairy and general groceries at reasonable prices.

“We make our markets available to everyone so that they have the option of affordable, healthy foods on a regular basis,” said Greg Hamm, Fresh Thyme director of operations.

Selections include gluten-free, preservative-free, organic and natural items.

Fresh Thyme, a relatively new company based outside of Chicago, spent $3.5 million renovating a former OfficeMax store in Clocktower Square, 2900 University Ave. The company added skylights and a polished concrete floor. The bright, simple store has a bakery section with delivered frozen items baked in the store daily, a meat department featuring Boar’s Head deli meats and 24 varieties of store-made sausages like chicken with Parmesan. Frozen ground meats include bison, buffalo, elk and goat.

There’s a salad bar, olive bar and hot-and-cold food counter featuring pizza, soups, salads and sandwiches to go. The store offers rotisserie chicken, fresh sushi and seafood.

The main attraction is the produce department, which offers a selection of organic items. Overall, produce is 25 percent to 30 percent of a Fresh Thyme store’s total sales, Hamm said. That compares with an average of about 12 percent for conventional grocery stores, according to Progressive Grocer’s annual consumer expenditures study.

“Our primary focus is freshness and produce,” Hamm said.

An advertisement for the new store lists whole pineapples for 99 cents, Brussels sprouts $1.77 a pound, asparagus $1.97 a pound, avocados for 88 cents and grapefruit or oranges three for $1.

The low pricing is not a gimmick, Hamm said. “We are promoting aggressively in ads at the beginning,” but prices will remain reasonable, he said.

The store carries few popular brand-name items, save for Cheerios, Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and other items most often requested by customers, Hamm said. There is a wide variety of store-brand foods, he said.

Other features include:

• A wine and beer department.
• A large vitamin and supplement department.
• A large selection of fresh juices made in the store from oranges, beets and carrots.
• A growing variety of locally produced foods, dairy products, meats and produce.
• More than 300 nut, seed, grain, confection and coffee items in the bulk grocery section.

The company promotes sustainability, using non-toxic cleaning products and donating excess food and produce to local food banks and other charities. It offers customers paper, plastic and recycled plastic bags at the six check-out lanes.

Fresh Thyme was born in 2014 when two former Sunflower Farmers Market executives moved to the Midwest to create a similar company. The venture was capitalized by grocery giant Meijer Cos., a Michigan-based grocery and general merchandise company.

The West Des Moines store is the company’s 34th location. Fresh Thyme is actively looking at three or four other sites in Iowa, Hamm said.

Store hours are 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.