If you’ve called Colorado home for at least a couple of decades, you probably remember Wild Oats Marketplace, a natural grocery store founded in 1987 in Boulder (2584 Baseline Road, to be exact). At its peak, the chain operated more than 20 stores in the Centennial State—and sowed more than 100 around the country. But by 2009, all of the Wild Oats had vanished.
Particularly in our health-obsessed region—where labels like organic, free-range, and non-GMO held sway with consumers long before they became national trends—it feels mysterious that such a purveyor would have tanked. The culprit, it turns out, was an attempted 2007 acquisition by competitor Whole Foods Market, which (after being blocked by the Federal Trade Commission on antitrust grounds) rebranded many Wild Oats locations to its own name and sold off the remainder.
After that, Wild Oats became a brand name bought and sold by various players, even landing on the shelves of Walmart from 2014 to 2016 as part of its line of affordable organic foods. Most recently, KeHE, an employee-owned distributor of natural and organic foods, saw potential in the Wild Oats brand and its positive associations for Coloradans. In 2025, the company purchased the rights to the name, with the ultimate goal of rolling out a line of products—starting with juices, smoothies, and eggs—to sell in specialty markets…