Company: NGVC
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001437749-25-037556
Chunk: 801

Company: Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-12-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 801
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 Unlike most of our competitors, most of our private label nuts, trail mix and flours are refrigerated in our warehouse and stores to maintain freshness.

Our Crew Members and Our Approach to Human Capital Resources

We believe our Crew members make our Company great. We offer benefits, resources and training to our Crew members, and support a healthy, balanced lifestyle. We support Crew members wellness through free nutrition education programs, competitive pay and benefits and a culture that offers the opportunity to improve the lives of others. As part of our commitment to our founding principles, we are focused on the engagement, development, retention, and health and wellbeing of our Crew members.

As of September 30, 2025, we employed 3,455 full-time and 795 part-time (less than 30 hours per week) Crew members, including a total of 410 Crew members at our home office and our bulk food repackaging facility and distribution center. We believe we have good relations with our Crew members. We have an established set of standard operating procedures to manage our human capital management function, including hiring and human resource policies, training practices and operational instruction manuals. This allows each store to operate with strict accountability and still maintain independence to respond to its unique circumstances. As of September 30, 2025 and through the date of this report, none of our stores are unionized or subject to any collective bargaining agreement.

Culture and Engagement. Our Company strives to empower healthier communities by cultivating a culture focused on our core values, including caring for our customers and Crew members, having fun at work, inclusivity, working with passion, and being authentic. Our leadership reinforces our founding principles and core values by providing significant training on these topics to new store managers and assistant store managers. We have also undertaken a number of initiatives designed to engage our workforce, including conducting surveys to solicit feedback from our Crew members, conducting regular focus groups with our store Crew members to identify opportunities for process improvement at our stores, and conducting monthly calls with our store leadership to review priorities and celebrate accomplishments.

Crew Member Development and Promotion. Investing in the development of our Crew members is an important area of focus to ensure the sustainability of our business. We prioritize promoting leaders from within our organization and strive to support career development through regular training and leadership development opportunities. During fiscal year 2025, we promoted internal candidates to fill 100% of our vacant regional manager positions, approximately 67% of our vacant store manager positions, approximately 69% of our vacant assistant store manager positions, and approximately