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Articles by Jay Jacobowitz
AI Everything?
Who Cares About Your Blog Anymore? Ah, for the good old days when all you had to do was post your latest health tip on social media and wait for your high ranking on Google to generate click-throughs to your website. What’s changed? Google AI Overviews. In response to the typical consumer search (What’s the best X for Y?) Google inserts its AI-generated answers ahead of any other search results that appear down the page.
GLP-1 and “The Great Dietary Awakening”
In AI, Your Website, and The Great Dietary Awakening, I discussed why a website with clear messaging and a strong SEO, AEO, & GEO strategy is essential. Here, I am sharing more insights on the increased spotlight on the natural products industry. How many people take GLP-1s? In a 2026 Gallup survey, 15% of U.S. adults reported having used GLP-1 medicine for weight loss.
AI, Your Website, and The Great Dietary Awakening
Whether or not you are concerned about Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) ultimate impact on society, you might want to focus a bit closer to home right now: How to maintain connection with consumers despite shifting communication pathways. At the April Food Industry Summit, held at Saint Joseph’s University Haub School of Business, speakers sounded the alarm for grocers.
Retail Insights® 2026 Retail Universe for U.S. Premium Natural, Organic Foods, Supplements & Personal Care
Each year, Retail Insights updates its database of U.S. grocers in eight retail channels including conventional supermarkets, large “supernatural” specialty grocers, club stores, mass merchants, independent natural retailers and coops, pharmacies, vitamin chains, and “compact grocers,” a term we coined in 2012 signifying those retailers operating in up to 20,000 square feet.
2026 48th Annual Retailer Survey
Where are you seeing momentum—and where are you feeling pressure? Independent natural products retailers address these topics and more in WholeFoods Magazine’s 2026 Annual Retailer Survey, now in its 48th year. Designed to go beyond the data, this survey helps industry members better understand the realities of independent retail today. Hear directly from retailers in our Retailers Sound Off section, then explore the detailed findings across these pages.
48th Annual Retailer Survey-Advance Look
Thank you for participating in WholeFoods Magazine's 2026 48th Annual Retailer Survey. To show our gratitude, here is your advance look at key findings from the survey. If you are an independent natural products retailer, you can compare your results to stores in this survey that are most like yours by calculating your perishables as a percentage of total sales.
Looking Back, and Forward: 2025 - 2026
Delivering Solid, Consistent, Customer Service Southeast Retailer (Mom): “2025 continued strong through the end of the year. There was a lull during the government shutdown in the fourth quarter. With my daughter taking over the business, there are so many good things happening.
Succession
Figuring out what to do with a mature, closely held, relatively small retail business—particularly one in the niche natural foods industry—is a challenge for founders who see an inevitable end to their running of the business. Store employees—not always, but usually—don’t have the resources to buy the business, nor are they likely to have the desire or skills to do so.
Staffing: Strategies For Success
Here’s a universal truth: Natural products retailers struggle to fully staff their stores. Here’s another: Many or most of today’s younger job applicants don’t appear to value work. Is there a way for you to buck this trend and improve staffing levels and worker productivity? Some thoughts. Who’s in the workforce?
Success, Succession, and Holding Steady
Our cross-country survey of independent natural retailers reveals widespread resilience, several strong successes, optimism as the next generation takes over with new energy and ideas, and in those few cases where business isn’t growing as rapidly, retailers are holding steady. Here's what they told us. Influencers Drive Business Into Our Store Southeast Retailer: “We’re still in a growth cycle, up 10% so far this year, kind of amazing.
Retail Insights® 2025 Retail Universe for U.S. Premium Natural, Organic Foods, Supplements & Personal Care
You could say 2024 was the year natural organic products took first place in the food retailing universe, outpacing conventional groceries by nearly two percentage points: up 6.89% vs. 4.95%; and adding a record $7.137 billion in natural sales to reach $110.75 billion across the eight U.S. food retailing channels we track annually at Retail Insights. Who’s first and who’s last? Let’s find out.
2025 47th Annual WholeFoods Magazine Retailer Survey
What are your goals, your pain points, your bright spots? Independent natural products retailers answer that question in our 2025 Annual Retailer Survey, now in it’s 47th year. This survey is designed to go deeper than the data, to help industry members understand the state of independent retail. Hear directly from our respondents on top challenges in our “Retailers Sound Off” section on page 8, and take a deep dive into the numbers on these next nine pages.
47th Annual Retailer Survey-Advance Look
Thank you for participating in WholeFoods Magazine's 2025 47th Annual Retailer Survey. To show our gratitude, here is your advance look at key findings from the survey. If you are an independent natural products retailer, you can compare your results to stores in this survey that are most like yours by calculating your perishables as a percentage of total sales.
Independent Retailers Look Back on 2024 & Ahead to 2025
It’s Hard to Know What Trump Will Do Northwest Retailer: “On NPR, I heard that the FDA announced and maybe is implementing new standards for what the label ‘health food’ means. They said there will be certain standards, such as the amount of certain food ingredients, like sugars, for you to be able to call it health foods. I see that as good. “The year that just ended has been successful and is a turnaround. Our fiscal year is October to September.
DSHEA at 30: Trade Group View
In this third and final installment of our DSHEA at 30 series, we continue our discussion of the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) with industry trade associations, whose memberships include retailers, manufacturers, brands, raw materials suppliers, and industry advisers and consultants.
DSHEA | WholeFoods Magazine
Read More Read More Editor's Letter Read More Merchandising Insights Read More Read More Read More Read More Editor's Letter Read More Merchandising Insights Read More Read More
Jay Jacobowitz, President and Founder, Retail Insights
How are our industry trade groups and organizations supporting advocacy and helping to move the industry forward? And what actions are needed now? Read on for key insights. In this third installment of WholeFoods Magazine's DSHEA at 30 series, we continue our discussion of the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) with industry groups, who tell us how they are advocating to preserve access to healthful natural products.
DSHEA at 30-Where’s our grassroots army?
Before the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) became federal law 30 years ago this October, the U.S. Food and Drug Agency (FDA) regularly terrorized natural products retailers, raiding their stores and pulling product off the shelf in an attempt to curb the industry’s free speech right to tell the public the health benefits of natural products. Fast-forward three decades and we’ve learned preserving that freedom requires constant vigilance.
Need an Exit Strategy?
If you are like most U.S. independent natural products retailers, you are in business because you believe in the products. And like many who started their stores years ago, you may be thinking of winding down your involvement. Here are, in no particular order, some things to think about. Depending on their capabilities, you are either fortunate or not-so-fortunate to have children who want to take over. Capable offspring can bring new life and improved operations.
2024 46th Annual Retailer Survey
Please tell us anything that is on your mind about your business… That was the first question we asked independent natural products retailers for our 2024 Annual Retailer Survey, now in its 46th year. The goal of this question: to help industry members throughout the supply chain see beyond the data, and hear directly from independents about the state of the business.
Retail Universe for U.S. Premium Natural Organic Food, Supplement, and Personal Care Sales
U.S. natural organic retailers had strong growth this year in six of the eight U.S. retail channels we track in the Retail Insights® Universe. Only pharmacy chains, independent pharmacies, and vitamin chains suffered sales declines. Natural organic retail sales reached $103.6 billion, up $4.3 billion from last year’s $99.3 billion, a 4.38% increase. Altogether, natural organics make up 10.13% of the $1.023 trillion we are estimating for total U.S. food-store sales.
46th Annual Retailer Survey-Advance Look
Thank you for participating in WholeFoods Magazine's 2024 46th Annual Retailer Survey. To show our gratitude, here is your advance look at key findings from the survey. If you are an independent natural products retailer, you can compare your results to stores in this survey that are most like yours by calculating your perishables as a percentage of total sales.
2024: Independent Retailers Peer Into Their Crystal Balls
Our year-end interviews with independent natural products retailers reveal goals, challenges, surprising innovation, and resilience. Building on a Solid 2023 Southeast Retailer: “What is most concerning is not being fully staffed. We’re hiring bits and pieces of people because we don’t have enough applicants who want full-time work. Students are good, but they only want limited hours. We’re managing it, but it is way more stressful than a regular hiring cycle. I’m hoping for a breakthrough in that.
Next Steps: Grooming Young Employees
How do you decide to invest in young employees? Will they stay? Do they care? Listen to your fellow independent natural organic retailers from around the country relate their recruiting experiences. Southeast Retailer:“We’re still trying to find people to work. Young staff members used to be happy with our pay level, and I’m paying more than before.
What Can Independents Learn From Other Retailers?
Independent natural retailers looking to stay in business can benefit from knowing what retailers in the other seven U.S. retail food channels are doing with natural products.
Retail Theft: Symptom of Social Decay
What a difference a couple of years makes. In 2020, as the pandemic shut down non-essential businesses and people quarantined, front-line employees in food stores, along with doctors and nurses, were revered by the country as heroes. Not so today. How quickly we’ve lost our shared sense of community. Listen to your natural colleagues as they describe retailing in 2023. Southeast Retailer: “We are not overly suspicious, and don’t want people to feel we are following them around, targeting them.
Retail Insights® 2023 Retail Universe for U.S. Premium Natural Organic Food, Supplement & Personal Care Sales
Club stores like Costco and mass merchandisers Walmart and Target saw the highest percentage increase in sales, up 8.67% and 8.11%, respectively. Supernaturals like Whole Foods and Sprouts, and conventional supermarkets, added the most dollars: up $1.19 billion, and up $1.175 billion, respectively. And “Compact Grocers”—those stores under 20,000 square feet like Aldi and Natural Grocers—also turned in strong results, adding $622.7 million in natural organic sales.
2023 45th Annual Retailer Survey
By Jay Jacobowitz and Maggie Jaqua Sponsored by: Nutrasource For 45 years, WholeFoods Magazine has been conducting this survey, but we changed things up slightly during the upheaval of the pandemic by starting our questionnaire with a simple yet significant request: Please tell us anything that is on your mind about your business. The responses help industry members see beyond the numbers and hear from independent retailers, in their own words, on the state of business.
Looking Back and Ahead: 2022 Review, 2023 Outlook...
What forces in 2022 will continue in 2023, and which ones will change? Here’s my best guess on a few. Staffing: The massive, late-2022 tech-industry layoffs of tens of thousands of workers will increase the size of the available U.S. workforce. At least some of these newly unemployed will seek jobs in the real world, including food retailing.
*!?*! Staffing. You’re not alone.
A late September survey of independent natural products retailers across the country about their workforces reveals common problems, continuing pressures, and some silver linings. “Staffing is the number one thing that keeps us up at night. In the old days, you could rely on someone to stay in their position. Our core leadership is solid, but none of the new hires want to work evenings and weekends, so you stretch your core team.
Attracting the Next Generation of Customers is Key
A shrinking generation of original natural products shoppers is a problem for independents. In its third-quarter conference call in August, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, returning to lead the company for the third time, pondered, “I would add one other thing that hasn’t come up yet, and that is the relevancy that Starbucks has with young people…One of the metrics for me personally has always been trying to understand on an annual basis, is our customer getting older or younger?
Post-Pandemic, What Do Shoppers Think About Food?
Here’s a number that shows current U.S. thinking: North American air-passenger traffic in May 2022 surged 203% compared to May 2021. Most of us, it appears, have decided to live with a mutating virus and return to normal life. So how does this shift in thinking impact food shopping?
Thinking of Selling Your Store? - WholeFoods Magazine
Yes, if you’ve got good profits. What are good profits? Net profits—cash that remains available to you at the end of each year after you’ve paid all your expenses—vary widely depending on the type, size, and age of the store(s) you own. But a good rule of thumb is, to be attractive to a buyer, your projected future profits should exceed the wholesale value of your inventory by a solid margin. Otherwise, you are better off liquidating your inventory and closing your doors.
What is “Mandatory Product Listing”?
Those of you who entered the natural products industry in the 2000s may not know the story of the late U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT). He served six terms, and passed away on April 23, 2022. Sen. Hatch, whose home state of Utah was and is headquarters to many significant vitamin and supplement manufacturers, was naturally a strong advocate for our industry. Through his efforts, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (“DSHEA,” pronounced ‘dis-shay’) became law.
Shoppers Shift Back to Brick & Mortar
When the pandemic struck two years ago, consumers went online and away from risky in-store shopping as lockdowns, social distancing, and work-from-home trends took effect. Easy, but above all safe, online commerce looked set to displace brick-and-mortar shopping forever. But it turns out, maybe not.
Who Are You In The Marketplace?
What’s your elevator speech? You know, the simple sound bite that describes your business in a way a 10-year-old can understand? Fortunately, a few successful retailers have given us some useful examples to ponder.
44th Annual Retailer Survey
By Jay Jacobowitz and Maggie Jaqua Sponsored by: Nutrasource Most importantly: How are you? This year, the first question in our annual retailer survey was a simple invitation to sound off on pressing matters, to help industry members see beyond the numbers, and hear straight from you, the independent natural products retailer, about the past year. As one retailer noted, these are historical times in life, in retail, and in business in general.
Retail Insights® 2022 Retail Universe for Premium Natural Organic Food, Supplement & Personal Care Sales
The U.S. natural organic brick-and-mortar and online retail sectors added $3.1 billion and grew 3.34% in 2021. Results were dragged down by 1,293 corporate vitamin chain-store closures, the majority of which were GNC stores. Including these losses, natural organic retail and online sales grew $2.6 billion and 2.79%, to reach $95.4 billion, and 12.2% of total food-store sales last year (please see table).
What happened Last Year….and 4 Predictions for 2022
The consumer drives all—including panic buying We must view 2021 through the eyes of the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. Many retailers—of food, clothing, electronics, and more—saw decreases in 2021 without the panic-driven hoarding that boosted 2020 sales. Because of this sales anomaly, many retailers preferred to compare their 2021 results to 2019, skipping over 2020. Fair enough. And you’d be right to make the same comparison.
Changing Consumer Shopping Preferences
There has been a vast increase in online ordering in the past year, so we wanted to know: How are customers obtaining products from natural products stores? To find out, we expanded this year’s survey questionnaire to capture the full variety of delivery solutions stores have devised to accommodate customers’ desire for convenience and safety. Six in 10 promote preorders picked up curbside while 56% fielded phone, email or text orders.
Trade Shows, Yes or No?
We’ll probably never fully replace trade shows, nor should we. But the days when you send a contingent of employees on multiple overnights to hunt for new products are likely over. We won’t spend a lot of time rehearsing why, but briefly: pandemic uncertainty, increasing cost, and reduced access to relevant suppliers who understand that you are an independent retailer, and are interested specifically in partnering with you to develop your business. Who goes to the show?
Whither Independents?
Why do some independents succeed while others struggle? There’s no single success formula, but clues emerge as we scan the retail landscape. An Outmoded Business Model When thinking about business models, it’s useful to take a generational view. GNC and The Vitamin Shoppe, the two largest U.S. pure-play vitamin chain stores, historically anchored their businesses to bodybuilders, and to consumers who believed they could correct all dietary shortcomings by taking vitamins and supplements.
Be First to Know How Independent Retailers Did This Year
The editors at WholeFoods are putting the finishing touches on our Annual Retailer Survey, which will go out to our independent retailer readers in early August. This year’s survey will begin where last year’s left off. We expect to hear more brilliant solutions to dealing with COVID-19 restrictions, keeping employees safe, customers happy, and operations running smoothly.
Mask II–The Sequel: Whiplash! | WholeFoods Magazine
On May 16, 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control updated its COVID-19 guidance for wearing masks: “If you’ve been fully vaccinated: You can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.
Post-COVID Store Operations: Changes to Prepared, Bulk Foods, and Customer Policies
Any regular reader of this magazine knows our annual retailer survey, published each March, consistently reveals that the more fresh, perishables foods a store carries, the greater its sales. Prepared foods departments literally drive sales momentum in these full-service natural organic grocery stores.
Retail Insights® 2021 Retail Universe for Premium Natural Organic Food, Supplement & Personal Care Sales
The lesson from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is this: natural products are essential. As the pandemic broke out in early 2020, freaked-out consumers—both existing and those new to natural products—swarmed retailers in all eight U.S. channels we track, snapping up natural immune-support products, and driving robust sales increases in stores with a natural focus.
2021 43rd Annual Retailer Survey
Same-Store Sales: Year-Over-Year $ and % Change, By Department and Store Group In addition to comparing each year’s survey respondents to the prior years’ respondents, we also ask retailers to tell us how they did compared to their own “same-store” sales compared to a year ago. Overall, seven of the nine product categories we track increased. Two departments, prepared foods and bulk foods, decreased.
2020 Year in Review Part 2: Retailers Weigh In
Part 1 of this story, 2020 Year In Review Plus What’s New and What’s Next for 2021, is available here. This coming March, WholeFoods Magazine will publish the results of its 43rd Annual Retailer Survey of U.S. independent natural organic retailers. We are crunching those numbers now, but wanted to give you an advance look at what survey respondents were thinking as recently as October, 2020. Each year, we ask U.S. independents to tell us how their business is doing, and what is on their minds.
What’s a Website For?
Independent natural products retailers seem to intuitively know the daily work they do to help others get and stay well is more important than having a website. Yet a website is a necessary piece of advertising. What sort of website makes the most sense, and what sort should you avoid?
Coronavirus Diary Part II
In June, we published Part I of this series of retailer interviews about the response to the pandemic. Here, we follow up as of early October, and sincerely thank those independents who generously shared their thoughts and observations. Home Delivery Northern New England retailer: “Delivery logistics are challenging. We have our own van. But, who is driving? It comes down to being in the distribution business. Do you pull somebody out of produce? There isn’t enough margin to justify delivery.
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