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March 2, 2018
T he C olumbia P ress
Grocers: Hundreds turn out for two-day opening
Continued from Page 1
ucts.
“I love this store,” Bermu-
dez said. “I love not having
to go all the way to Portland.
Now it’s 15 minutes as com-
pared to an hour and 15 min-
utes. This is convenient.”
Natural Grocers has 140
stores in 19 states.
The company has been
around since 1955, when
Margaret and Philip Isely
opened their first store in
Lakewood, Colo. The compa-
ny’s literature describes the
Iselys as “struggling, idealis-
tic young parents” searching
for a way to help Margaret
Isely improve after becoming
ill following the birth of her
second child.
The company they founded
63 years ago has remained
a family-owned business fo-
cused on nutritional supple-
ments and all things natural,
organic and healthy.
Employees received exten-
sive training about the com-
pany’s products, more than a
dozen food and health class-
es are offered at each store
every month, and nutritional
counselors are available to
customers at every location.
“We have 10,000 dietary
supplement products just in
our vitamin section,” said
Above: Chef Chris
Holen of Baked Alas-
ka in Astoria talks with
customers about his
creations using Natu-
ral Grocers products.
Right: Jessica Har-
ris of Cannon Beach
scours the skin-care
products at Tuesday’s
opening night.
Cindy Yingst
The Columbia Press
Michelle Larsen, who moved
from Utah to become War-
renton’s nutritional health
coach. She has been with the
company two years and sell-
ing vitamins since 1998.
“I haven’t seen anything
that compares with what
we have here,” Larsen said.
“All of our supplements go
through a third-party screen-
ing to make sure what it says
is in the bottle is actually in
the bottle.”
Jamie Dunn of Warrenton
left a 30-year job at Safeway
to become Natural Grocers’
grocery manager. She spent
a month training in Colorado.
“They are so into educating
their employees and so into
making food better in every
aspect,” Dunn said. “The way
they treat their employees is
amazing.”
Making the switch was not
a difficult decision, she said.
“It’s the way they really
stand behind their products
and work their principles.
A lot of things, to me, just
sounded right.”