About Us

By Mitchell Clute

Raw data may tell a story of sorts, about how the economy as a whole is trending and how those trends affect the natural products market. It's possible to look up total industry sales, sales by department, sales per square foot and a hundred other numbers. But beyond color-coded graphs are the individual stories of natural foods retailers.

Though a store's success may hinge on broader economic factors, the biggest impacts are often local. Here, four retailers discuss their own stories, explaining how they've responded to challenges ranging from new competitors and changing ownership to drought and rising unemployment.

Adele's Naturally: Adapting to change is the recipe for success
After 33 years in business, Adele's Naturally of Evansville, Ind., has become a local institution. The store has managed to thrive by finding the right niche in a place where natural health hasn't quite gone mainstream. "We're a stubborn Germanic community of about 180,000," says Faye Gibson, current owner and daughter-in-law of the store's founder and namesake. "If we could sell them organic hot dogs and beer, we'd be OK, but most people still think if it's sold in a health food store, it has to be tofu."

Still, community acceptance of natural products has come a long way since Adele Cotrell founded the store at the age of 60, following the unexpected death of her husband. "When she opened the store, most people thought it was witchcraft or voodoo," Gibson says. "And she is rather eccentric, but it's a lovable trait." At 93, Adele no longer runs the store, but she's still active and visits the store on a regular basis.

Adele's Naturally does the bulk of its business in supplements, though it also stocks a wide range of groceries— a little of everything except fresh meat and produce. Recently, the store has placed an emphasis on gluten-free foods as well. "It's only 1,600 square feet, but we have everything crammed in that we possibly can," Gibson says. "Last year we did about $700,000 in sales. I don't know where that falls in the larger scheme of things, but we made enough to pay the bills."

Back in the fall of 2006, Gibson was looking for a larger location, one where she could expand the grocery offerings. As she contemplated the move, a locally owned full-service natural grocery store opened in the area, and suddenly business was down close to 8 percent. Then, a few months later, the area's mainstream supermarket, the St. Louis-based regional chain Schnucks, began adding organic SKUs as well.

Adele's responded by finding new niches. "It absolutely helps to be a niche player," Gibson says. When new competitors moved in, Adele's focused on an area that no one else in town had pursued: gluten-free foods. "We'd seen a niche for allergy-free foods— wheat-, gluten- and soy-free— so the foods we continue to carry are these specialty foods," Gibson says. "We'll continue to succeed with niches others aren't paying attention to.
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