Whole Foods to Open on Fulham Broadway

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Organic supermarket aims to redevelop Blue Elephant site

Organic foods supermarket Whole Foods Market is coming to Fulham Broadway, on the site currently used by one of Fulham's most famous restaurants, the Blue Elephant.

The new 23,000 square foot store is planned to launch in Autumn 2013, creating 150 full and part time local jobs.

Fulham Broadway will be the organic chain's eighth store in Britain and seventh in London, alongside branches in Camden, Stoke Newington, Soho, Clapham and of course its flagship store in Kensington. Another new store will open in Richmond upon Thames in 2012.  

Jeff Turnas, Whole Foods Market’s UK Regional President says: " We are excited to be able to further expand our grocery offering to shoppers in West London.

" The Fulham Broadway store will be a fantastic addition to our portfolio of stores in the UK and it will allow us to show off the best in British foods such as our unique animal welfare rated meats and sustainably ranked seafood, while focusing on reviving traditional skills such as butchery and fishmongery in store.

" As with our existing London stores, our goal is to be the finest food shop in every community we serve. For example, we will be baking and cooking on site each day and we will be offering an amazing array of fresh, healthy and organic food, highlighting local products from our UK producers.

"We want our customers to celebrate the joys of eating and living well and we hope to help prompt conscious food choices.”
 
A spokesman for the Blue Elephant has confirmed that the restaurant, famous for its exotic interior with jungle plants and pond, is "in negotiation" with Whole Foods over the future of the site.

The arrival of Whole Foods will mean Fulham has five major foodstores within yards of each other on the Broadway. It will join Sainsbury's, Waitrose, M&S Simply Foods and Union Market, which opened last year on the site of Fulham Broadway's old underground station.

There will also be three supermarkets a short walk away on Parsons Green Lane, as the existing Cooperative and Budgens stores are joined by Waitrose, which plans to open a convenience store on the site formerly used as an Alfa Romeo showroom later this year.

     

 

 

May 11, 2011