Wheat Montana Farms Inc., of Three Forks, Mont., says it has closed or is closing all four of its corporate-owned retail bakery and deli stores, including outlets in Spokane and Coeur dAlene, to focus on its wholesale bread, grain, and flour operations and franchise locations.


Jeremy Fritz, the companys Kalispell, Mont.-based director of operations, says sales at the corporate-owned stores werent keeping up with projections over the year that Wheat Montana operated them. Wheat Montana had opened a 2,500-square-foot retail store and deli in Regal Pond Village, at Regal Street and 44th Avenue on Spokanes South Hill last November, and at about the same time opened an outlet at 405 W. Neider, in Coeur dAlene. Both those stores now have closed, and the company also is closing corporate-owned stores in Richland, Wash., and Boise, Idaho.


Fritz says Wheat Montana Farms now will focus on its wholesale operation in Three Forks, which is located in southwest Montana near Bozeman, where it cleans and processes grain, mills flour, and bakes bread for a five-state area, as well as the nine Wheat Montana stores run by franchisees throughout Montana.


Fritz says the two stores here each employed about 10 people.


Spokane Developer Terry Tombari, owner of Regal Pond Village retail center, says that other than for the Wheat Montana space, the center is full. AT&T recently leased a similarly-sized space there for a retail outlet, he says.


Wheat Montana plans to sublease out the space it had on the South Hill.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.