Company: NGVC
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-037556
Chunk: 791

Company: Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 791
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 strict quality guidelines. Our store managers enhance our robust product offering by customizing their stores’ selections to address the preferences of local customers. All products undergo a stringent review process to ensure the products we sell meet our strict quality guidelines, which we believe helps us generate long-term relationships with our customers based on transparency and trust.

Engaging customer service experience based on education and empowerment. We strive to offer consistently exceptional customer service in a convenient, clean and shopper-friendly environment, which we believe creates a differentiated shopping experience, enhances customer loyalty and generates repeat visits from our clientele. A key aspect of our customer service model is to provide free nutrition education to our customers. We believe this focus provides an engaging retail experience while also empowering our customers to make informed decisions about their health. We offer our science-based nutrition education through our trained Crew members, our Health Hotline® magazine, community outreach programs, one-on-one nutrition health coaching, nutrition classes, cooking demonstrations and our website. Our commitment to nutrition education and customer empowerment is emphasized throughout our entire organization, from executive management to store Crew members. Every store also maintains a Nutritional Health Coach (NHC) position. The NHC is responsible for educating our customers about good nutrition and for training our store employees on how to assist customers in compliance with applicable local, state and federal regulations. Each NHC must have earned a degree or certificate in nutrition or a related field from an accredited school, complete continuing education in nutrition, and be thoroughly committed to fulfilling our mission. Substantially all of our NHCs are full-time Crew members. We believe our NHC position represents a key element of our customer service model.

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Scalable operations and replicable, cost-effective store model. We believe our scalable operating structure, attractive new store model, flexible real estate strategy and disciplined approach to new store development allow us to maximize store performance and continue to grow our store base. Our store model has been successful in highly competitive markets and has supported significant growth outside of our original Colorado geography. We believe our supply chain and infrastructure are scalable and will accommodate growth based on the ability of our primary distribution relationships to effectively service our planned store locations. Our investments in overhead and information technology infrastructure, including purchasing, receiving, inventory, point of sale, warehousing, distribution, accounting, reporting and financial systems, support this growth. We also have a comprehensive human resources information and learning management system (HRIS) to further support the scalability of our operations. In addition, we have established effective site selection guidelines, as well as scalable