Natural Grocers sees supplement sales rise in face of recent bad press

In the supplement category in particular, the company reported a 17% rise in sales. Even with the bad press supplements received after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched his assault on the industry, habitual consumers seem pretty much unaffected, said Kemper Isley, CEO of Natural Grocers. “ They came in about how they've been faring over the last couple years at our stores, a few basis points lower than what our overall growth has been . . . we haven't seen people not coming in to buy supplements,” said Isley in an earnings call with analysts that was transcripted on the site seekingalpha.com . Natural Grocers has a model that splits the store about down the middle between supplements and organic foods. The company has been pursuing an aggressive growth strategy since going public several years ago. In the first half of its fiscal 2015 ending March 31, the company opened eight new stores and now has 95 stores in the western US. The company plans to open an additional 10 stores in the remainder of its fiscal 2015. While Isley said the overall year was strongly positive, he did say that the company has been paradoxically affected by the falling price of oil through the six-month period. Oil hit a decades-low of $45 a barrel in early January. While this is usually thought of as a good thing for the overall economy, Natural Grocers operates in a number of states with a significant amount of petroleum production, and in those areas low prices means less work as drilling activity dries up and less money goes into the local communities. “I think that the decrease in the price of oil has had quite an impact on a number of regions in the country and has had kind of a small detrimental effect on consumer confidence,” Isley said. Earnings details Among the highlights of Natural Grocers second quarter and first half earnings report were:

Natural Grocers sees supplement sales rise in face of recent bad press

In another confirmation of the transitory nature of the NYAG affair, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage reported stable growth in supplement sales in its half-year earnings results in which the dietary supplement and organic foods retailer saw overall sales rise by 21%.

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