Although supermarkets were not asked if they carried organic produce two years ago, many supermarkets commented on the growing consumer interest in this area, and every supermarket reported carrying it in at least some of its stores. As a result of the growing number of vegetarians and health conscious consumers, more stores are creating natural foods sections in their stores. Some, like Giant Food Stores, Inc. in Pennsylvania, said they were in the process of creating a separate natural foods section. Smith's Management and Hannaford Brothers both said they offer almost all of the vegan, vegetarian and natural food items we asked them if they carried. Supermarkets in New York answered yes to carrying every natural foods product in the survey.
Supermarkets respond to demand.
Each chain has individual stores that offer a greater variety of natural foods than its other stores because of the individual requests from different communities. The demand for vegetarian, vegan and organic products is clearly on the rise. There will always be obscure items that succeed through the little health food store because of their amazing properties, and there will always be products that major supermarket chains cannot carry. In another five years, though, the customer searching for tempeh in a major supermarket will probably just have to go down to aisle 4 rather than go down the road a couple of miles to the natural foods store. The Vegetarian Journal published here is not the complete issue, but these are excerpts from the published magazine.