An artist’s rendering of the exterior of the new grocery store proposed for 1490 Post Road East in Westport. This would be the first Sprouts location in Connecticut if it is approved. The Arizona-based retailer sells organic and natural foods.
Contributed photo
Construction equipment sits at the site of a new shopping center being developed at the intersection of Route 1 and Interstate 95 in Milford The retail center will be anchored by the state’s first Sprouts supermarket.
Luther Turmelle/Hearst Connecticut Media
A view of the former Hooters restaurant in Milford on the Boston Post Road on Monday, June 1, 2026. The defunct restaurant space will be part of a retail center that will include a Sprouts supermarket.
Luther Turmelle/Hearst Connecticut Media
The battle for Connecticut consumers dollars among supermarket chains continues unabated and will intensify in 2027 as new chain appears on the seen.
Connecticut will see its first Sprouts store debut in Milford next year, anchoring a shopping center adjacent to the Genesis car dealership at the intersection of Route 1 and Interstate 95. Site work is currently underway at 1052 Boston Post Road grading an area that once was home to a Hooters restaurant Howard Johnson motel.
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When work is completed next year, the 26.000 square foot supermarket will anchor a retail center that will include an additional 11,400 square feet os space for a restaurant and two additional retail spaces.
Cell phone retailer TMobile and DORO Marketplace, a West Hartford-based European style bakery and fast casual food chain have already committed to the shopping center, according to True Commercial Real Estate, which is handling the leasing.
Another Sprouts store is expected to open in Westport at 1460 Post Road East. The grocery chain’s plan for the new store has been submitted to the town, according to planning and zoning officials, with the review of the project scheduled to get underway sometime next month..
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Sprouts’ primary supermarket rivals are upscale chains like Whole Foods and Fresh Market.
But even as Sprouts enters the Connecticut market for the first time, the state’s largest supermarket chain is contracting.
Stop & Shop will close its Clinton store on October 29. The move comes around the two year anniversary of the chain closing five Connecticut stores.
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Wayne Pesce, president of the Connecticut Food Association, described the next 12 months as “a very volatile time” for the retail sector. The trade group represents supermarkets across the state.
“Consumers are behaving different in terms of the decisions they make on purchase,” Pesce said. Inflation has made consumers more carefully assessing their buying decisions, he said, and online retailer Amazon is making inroads into the market share of the bricks-and-mortar-grocers across the state
“Outside of Aldi’s new stores, the biggest shift in market share is going to Amazon,” he said.
Aldi now has 34 grocery stores in Connecticut with the opening of an Eats Windsor store on Oct. 1. and is continuing its aggressive expansion across the state. The discount grocery retailer expects to open a second grocery store in Bristol by the end of this year.
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Aldi’s development pipeline also includes stores in Stratford, Guilford and Clinton, all of which are expected to open sometime in 2027.
Aldi isn’t the only existing grocery chain in Connecticut that is opening new stores. Family-owned Big Y has plans to open new stores in 2027 in Orange and in Farmington.
They opening of the Farmington store adjacent to the Westfarms Mall is particularly intriguing because of its location off of Route 9 and Interstate 84 as well as the retail center’s reputation as one of Connecticut’s best malls.
Expansion plans for some major supermarket chain in Connecticut, however, remain unclear.
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The state’s highest profile grocer, Stew Leonard’s, still hasn’t publicly identified where it will open its next store. The Norwalk-based grocer has eight supermarket in three states, including locations in Danbury, Newington and Norwalk.
Another high profile supermarket chain in Connecticut has plans for a store on the Boston Post Road in Old Saybrook. But after an informal meeting with Old Saybrook officials in January, the Rhode Island-based developer that would build the store and the Connecticut attorney representing the developer have repeatedly not responded to inquiries from Hearst Connecticut Media about the project.
But Old Saybrook First Selectman isn’t optimistic about the project’s future.
“I think it’s dead in the water,” said Carl Fortuna Jr, who said the sticking point for the project seems to be waste water treatment.
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Even without the Old Saybrook store, Whole Foods has shown a slow, but steady approach to expansion in Connecticut.
The high-end grocery retailer’s newest Connecticut store opened in Cheshire in February, the opening of that store gave Whole Foods 13 locations in Connecticut.
A supermarket rival of Whole Foods in Connecticut, Wegman’s, celebrated the first anniversary in July of opening in its store in Connecticut. Pesce said that while it frequent takes Wegman’s a while to roll out expansion plans publicly, he is convinced the chain will add at least one more store in Connecticut.
While grocery store closings in Connecticut have been limited to Stop & Shop, Pesce said grocery store trends in neighboring states could find themselves to Connecticut. Pesce cited a report by Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy that 28 supermarkets in New Jersey have closed over the last two years.
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Linda Doherty, president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Food Council, said the losses concern the organization and need to be a priority for policymakers.
“Stores are feeling the affordability pressures,” Doherty said.
Pesce said that while further grocery store closings may not be in the offing here in Connecticut right now, it’s conceivable it could become a problem in the future.
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