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March 10, 2010

Trader Joe's eyeing Portland

By Matt Wickenheiser mwickenheiser@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Grocery chain Trader Joe's is seeking permission from the federal government to buy the former Wild Oats Market store on Marginal Way in Portland.

click image to enlarge

Trader Joe's is seeking permission to locate a store at the Marginal Way site of the former Wild Oats Natural Marketplace, shown in this 2005 photo.

Press Herald file photo

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According to a release from the Federal Trade Commission filed Tuesday, the agency is seeking public comments on the deal. Whole Foods Market Inc. acquired Wild Oats Market Inc. in 2007.

Whole Foods opened its Portland store in 2007, and soon closed the nearby Wild Oats Market.

Last year, Whole Foods Market announced it would sell 13 stores to resolve the FTC’s challenge of its $565 million purchase of Wild Oats. Whole Foods said it would also sell leases and assets of 19 Wild Oats stores that have closed. Rumors have swirled around Portland since the Wild Oats store was closed that Trader Joe’s was eyeing the market.

Federal regulators had challenged Whole Foods’ 2007 acquisition of Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats, worrying the deal would create a natural-food monopoly.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement last year that selling the stores would “substantially” restore competition that the purchase eliminated.

Whole Foods and Wild Oats were each other’s closest competitors in markets where they overlapped, the FTC said.

For information on how to comment to the FTC, visit their Web site.

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