BY ZLATI MEYER

DETROIT FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Walk down Nine Mile just west of Woodward and you'll see them.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

One right after another, on both sides of Ferndale's tightly packed commercial street, almost like the products that line their own aisles.

The less-than-half-a-mile stretch is now home to five grocery stores -- Ferndale Foods, Western Market, Save-A-Lot, Natural Food Patch and Organic Food and Vitamin Center, from west to east. Organic Food and Vitamin Center is the newest; it opened in December.

Most of the shopkeepers, industry analysts and customers are confident all the stores can survive. Not only does Ferndale and nearby communities have enough residents to keep them all in business, but the various stores serve different consumer supermarket needs. Plus, they're close enough to food-shopping-challenged Detroit that they draw west-side shoppers northward.

Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/20110410/BUSINESS06/104100439/0/SPORTS17/Grocers-gather-Ferndale?odyssey=nav|head