What do you do after founding and growing Wild Oats Market for 20 years? That’s a question Mike Gilliland has answered in a big way with Sunflower Farmers Market, and Tucson has played an important role in this upward-bound natural food chain’s rapid growth.

In 1987, Gilliland opened his first Wild Oats Natural Market in Boulder, Colo., right across from the University of Colorado in the heart of a city known for its natural foods and all kinds of other back-to-nature tendencies. It was a huge success, eventually growing into a chain with more than 100 stores with more than $1 billion in sales. But it soon faced a tough rival in natural-foods competitor Whole Foods Market, which finally ended up buying out Wild Oats in August 2007.

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Perhaps Gilliland saw the writing on the wall for Wild Oats. In 2001, he left the company he had created. By 2002, he had launched the first store in a new chain he called Sunflower Farmers Market in Albuquerque, N.M.

Gilliland’s fifth Sunflower store opened in Tucson in March 2004 at 7877 E. Broadway, followed in November 2004 by the second Tucson store at 4625 E. Speedway. Now, he’s doubling the number of Tucson stores with two new locations by mid-2009 — one at Marana Marketplace, a 300,000 square-foot retail power center at West Orange Grove and North Thornydale roads, and the other at North First Avenue and East Limberlost Drive.

Reminded that most of the country is currently going through hard times, Gilliland brushed off the economic doldrums.

"Actually our business has been going crazy — our year-to-year sales have been expanding. People who used to be Wild Oats or Whole Foods shoppers now come to Sunflower — it’s actually been great for us."

And despite potential Tucson competition from Whole Foods, Sprouts and Trader Joe’s, Gilliland said things are very positive in Tucson for Sunflower, which goes by the slogan, "Serious food ... silly prices." It touts its natural produce, but its prices tend to be less than those at Whole Foods. Gilliland pointed out that he has had some first-hand experience in Tucson with the Wild Oats stores here. He said Tucson has a fairly sizable pool of natural-foods consumers who have a strong familiarity with natural foods, but who don’t want to pay high prices.

Part of the success also seems to be strategic planning of locations. He does consider Sprouts a competitor, but he said the Sprouts store here is in a different location from his stores. He said Trader Joe’s isn’t really a competitor because, unlike Trader Joe’s, Sunflower’s main offering is fresh natural produce and meats.

"We keep it cheap," said Gilliland. "It’s a different take — Sunflower is more price-conscious — but still natural foods."

While yuppies were plentiful at Wild Oats stores, Gilliland said, Sunflower attracts a somewhat different clientele. "We love yuppies, but we don’t get as much of their business as we got at Wild Oats," he said. "A fair amount of our (Sunflower) customers don’t care that it’s natural food — it’s just great pricing."

In fact, Sunflower does better here than in many other locations. Gilliland said both Tucson stores chalk up sales that are in the top third among the chain’s 15 existing stores — all in the Southwest — in Phoenix, Texas, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

He predicts that total Sunflower sales will hit $200 million this year and that by the end of next year, with a big expansion into 15 new stores, sales will hit $500 million.

Gilliland admitted that, like all other food store chains, the price of gasoline, transportation and produce has become a challenge for Sunflower as well.

"We always try to be last guy to raise prices in the market," he said. "We’re always conscious of what everyone else is charging. But we run a low-overhead business — we keep as lean as possible."

Someday, Gilliland said, there might be room for a fifth Sunflower store in Tucson, but it will probably be a couple of years.

"We’re just going to do things next year, get to a half billion in sales, and then take a look and see where we’re going," he said.

Contact reporter Ed Egger at eegger@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4238.