Company: NGVC
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-037556
Chunk: 792

Company: Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 792
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 procedures to enable us to efficiently open new stores after lease execution. The smaller-store footprint made possible by our limited offering of prepared foods reduces real estate costs, labor costs and perishable inventory shrink and enables us to leverage our new store opening costs.

Commitment to sustainable products and practices. We have put in place product standards for dairy, eggs, meat, seafood and produce that support sustainable and ecologically responsible production methods. We believe our standards help to enhance the health of our customers, promote animal welfare, reduce antibiotic resistance and protect the environment. We have also instituted measures to reduce food waste, divert usable products to food banks, reduce single use plastic bags and reduce the use of pesticides and antimicrobial products. We believe these efforts reflect our commitment to corporate social responsibility and demonstrate our support for sustainable regenerative agricultural practices.

Experienced and committed management team with proven track record. Our executive management team has an average of 40 years of experience in the natural grocery industry, while our entire management team has an average of 33 years of relevant experience. Since the second generation of the Isely family assumed control of the business in 1998, we have grown our store count from 11 stores to 169 stores as of September 30, 2025 by remaining dedicated to our founding principles. Over their tenure, members of our executive management team have been instrumental in establishing a successful, scalable operating model, generating consistently strong financial results, developing an effective site selection and store opening process and implementing operational efficiencies. The depth of our management experience extends beyond our home office. As of September 30, 2025, our store managers and assistant managers at comparable stores had average tenures of approximately five years with us. In addition, we have a track record of promoting store management personnel from within. We believe our management’s experience at all levels will allow us to continue to grow our store base while maintaining operational excellence by driving efficiencies in store operations, managing inventory levels and focusing on exceptional customer service.

Our Growth Strategies

We are pursuing several strategies to continue our profitable growth, including:

Expand our store base. We intend to continue expanding our store base through new store openings in existing markets, as well as penetrating new markets, by leveraging our core competencies of site selection and efficient store openings. We believe we have significant opportunity for store footprint expansion by selectively pursuing in-fill opportunities in existing markets where we already have a strong presence, continuing to penetrate existing states where we have recently expanded our footprint, and entering new geographic regions that satisfy our site selection guidelines. In