Sprouts Farmers Market, the highly anticipated natural foods grocery store, will officially put down roots in Rollingwood Oct. 16.

“We did our market studies down there, and Rollingwood was definitely an area that was attractive to us for the demographics and the life style,” Sprouts president and chief operating officer Doug Sanders said.

The festivities for the opening will kick off with a free brunch buffet starting at 6:45 a.m. and extend all day, including children’s activities and a performance by the Westlake-grown Fire Ants.

Sanders, a native East Texan, said the company has been looking to expand into the Austin area for quite some time, and the recent opening of a packaging center in Dallas made the timing right. The Sprouts mission statement, “Healthy living for less,” was the seedling for a successful business plan as the company has expanded from one store to more than 40 in just seven years.

The savings, Sanders said, don’t come from cutting quality.

“From the produce side, we purchase all our own produce directly,” he said. “We have our own buyers who source it directly form the field, and that keeps the cost down. As we’ve gotten bigger and our volume has increased, we have a full buying staff here at the office. We leverage the best deals we can for our customers and pass the savings on.”

While most grocery stores carry a weekly circular for savings, Sprouts runs an eight-day circular, overlapping on Wednesdays, giving customers twice as many savings that day.

Sanders said the company also focuses on education, not just moving product.

“Last year, we had 32 stores with about 1,100 different educational events,” he said. “They ranged from a small physician coming in to give a talk on whatever his particular field, all the way up to national speakers. We’ve had anywhere from 25 people up to 500 people at an event.”

The company, he said, also works toward putting down real roots in its communities with programs such as “Stand up for State Parks.” Last year, Sprouts raised more than $100,000 for various parks in the states they served.

While the lifestyle mission and price point of sprouts will be good for customers, the city and local businesses are looking to the store for tax dollars and for driving business into the Mira Vista shopping center, which has seen several darkened store fronts this year.

“We’ve been told they will bring in 15,000 shoppers to the center per week, and that would be great,” said Collective Homes co-owner Joni Greeson. “We are thrilled to death. Whatever they do, it will be better.”

The center will soon also see the grand opening of a Sherwin Williams boutique paint store geared more toward individual homeowners doing small projects and design consultation instead of bulk buying.