Local goods on shelves for Whole Foods’ opening

You know how grocery stores place candy at the checkout to tempt you as you wait in line? The Whole Foods store that opens in Wichita Wednesday will be no exception – except that instead of Snickers, Cocoa Dolce chocolate bars will beckon.

The chocolate maker is one of several local businesses that will have their products for sale when the store at 1423 N. Webb Road opens at 9 a.m.

Whole Foods has a broad definition of local – anything within 400 miles – but some of its new vendors are from the Wichita area.

Shoppers will be able to find Reverie coffee, Sarah Jane’s salsa, Crust & Crumb bread, Cravings Gluten Free Bakery items and produce from Elm Lane Farm. That’s just a partial list, and Whole Foods said it would add more local products later.

“This is the deal,” Jamie Tabor Schmidt, creator of Chicken Poop lip balm, said of her inclusion on the shelves. She said she was applying to Whole Foods long before the chain decided to come to Wichita, because it’s “the big time for natural products.”

“We’ve been trying eight years and been turned down about eight times,” Tabor Schmidt said. “This time I heard from them.”

Farm to Market bread from Kansas City is going to drive its bread to Wichita 363 days of the year (don’t expect just-baked bread on Dec. 25 or 26). The bread is made without preservatives, so it doesn’t have a long shelf life.

“Topeka has probably been the farthest west we’ve gone,” said John Friend, the company’s vice president. A more extensive line will be delivered daily to Wichita’s GreenAcres stores as well.

Employment at the new Whole Foods is mainly locally sourced. About 100 of 122 employees are from the Wichita area, and many of those who have moved to Wichita from other cities to work at the store are from here originally, a Whole Foods spokesman said.

Melinda Foley, who had to close her independent Food for Thought natural foods store near Central and Hillside earlier this year in part because of increasing competition, is now an employee of Whole Foods, as its whole body team leader. She said she was thrilled to be working for the new store.

This story was originally published September 2, 2014 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Local goods on shelves for Whole Foods’ opening."