Green Horizons

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Green Horizons
By Anne Goodwin Sides
Issue 93, February/March 1999

IT'S NOT A 1960S CO-OP ANYMORE. TODAY'S NATURAL-FOODS MARKETPLACE IS A BIG, BRIGHT, MAINSTREAM PLACE. LET US TAKE YOU THERE, IN MOTHERING'S COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE NEW WORLD OF WHOLE FOODS.

The New Natural Marketplace
I ducked into my neighborhood Wild Oats store the other day to pick up a homeopathic cream with echinacea and pot marigold for my three year old's eczema, recommended to me by my hairstylist. I was also looking for something with arnica to soothe the swollen thumb I sprained skiing. While scanning the aisles, I stopped at a cooler filled with oversized bottles of juices spiked with herbal, mineral, and vitamin supplements, and decorated in eyecatching graphics. I grabbed a bottle of SoBe Wisdom, a sweet cocktail of ginkgo biloba, St. John's wort, and gotu kola, which promised to cheer me up, enhance my memory, energize my sex life, and "sharpen the mind." I am a mother of three -- this should be a staple of my diet.

Next, I feasted my eyes on the produce section -- a banquet of plump, fresh, fragrant, organic fruits and vegetables that would send a Russian housewife into shock -- and filled my basket with heirloom tomatoes, deep-green kale, and aromatic mangoes. I tossed in a fresh loaf of gazillion-grain bread, a few cans of organic frozen juices, milk, and yogurt, and headed for the checkout line. I nearly gasped out loud when the cashier rang up ... cha-ching ... $52.93.

Natural-foods markets such as Wild Oats, stocking "nutraceuticals" -- natural and organic foods, vitamin and herbal supplements, foods fortified with ingredients to enhance health benefits (like orange juice with calcium), and lesser-evil foods low in fat, sugar, caffeine, and salt -- are cashing in on a $20-billion nutrition industry. With many natural-foods companies showing 15 to 20 percent annual gains in sales, Wall Street is salivating over the fastest-growing segment in the entire retail sector.

Inevitably, the boom has led to cutthroat competition among the nation's largest organic-food purveyors, chains such as Whole Foods Markets, Wild by Nature, Mother's Market and Kitchen, and Wild Oats. The rules of capitalism being more or less constant, this competition has had the felicitous effect of driving prices down. In a brazen corporate move last summer, Whole Foods Markets opened up a new emporium in Boulder, Colorado -- the corporate home of chief competitor Wild Oats -- and proceeded to slash prices. Surprisingly, the interloper did not hurt Wild Oats; instead, both stores continued to expand, siphoning customers from the mainstream grocery chains. This year, with both Wild Oats and Whole Foods Markets saying they plan to open a dozen new stores, the natural-foods sensation shows no signs of leveling off.

The trend has not gone unnoticed by the mainstream supermarket chains, which have jumped in eagerly, capturing 9 percent of the market. In the Midwest, Dominick's Finer Foods started out by opening the World Market department in two of its stores in 1995. Now 50 of the company's 83 outlets feature natural-products departments. Similarly, the Boston-based company Star Markets started by introducing natural foods into its existing merchandise mix in 1995 by using the store-within-a-store concept. About a year and a half later, the chain opened its first freestanding Wild Harvest, and has since launched four more stores.

EIGHTY MILLION AGING BABY BOOMERS, like me, are driving the demand for natural products, according to a recent report by Salomon Smith Barney. We're feeling the chronic aches and pains, the anxiety, arthritis, and the insomnia that come with ... well, age. As medical costs go up, and managed care makes doctors seem inaccessible and harried, nutritional consultants roaming the aisles of our neighborhood natural-foods store can provide a comforting, available alternative. With more media attention focused on deaths caused by potent prescription drugs -- 20,000 patients, for example, die every year of stomach hemorrhages caused by using anti-inflammatory drugs -- more and more Americans are turning to thousand-year-old herbal remedies for preventing disease, slowing aging, or optimizing their health.

Age is not the only factor in consumer interest. Consumer awareness about food purity is also sparking sales. According to a study recently conducted by the Hartman Group, 53 percent of grocery shoppers are concerned about pesticide residues in food, and 55 percent believe man-made hormones and antibiotics do not belong in meat. Seventy percent think organic products are substantially better for one's health. And another 20 percent consider themselves "the new green mainstream": These are consumers who understand that their purchases have an impact on the environment, and they would not have it any other way.