Grocery Stores Remain Relevant As Physical Retail Space Suffers During Pandemic
Photo: Pixabay
This article originally appeared in the December edition of Presence Marketing’s Industry Newsletter
By Steven Hoffman
“We are clearly overretailed in America,” Byron Carlock, director of U.S. retail estate practice for London-based Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), told Fast Company in November. “Suburban sprawl created a situation where we just believed that every time there was a new intersection with four corners we needed to put up four strip centers. We’re learning differently now,” he told Fast Company.
According to PwC, average retail space for countries including France, Germany, the U.K. and Japan is less than 5 square feet per person, vs. in the U.S., where physical retail spaces averages more than 23 square feet per person. In other larger countries like the U.S., retail space is higher: in Canada, average retail space is 16 square feet per person; in Australia it’s approximately 11 square feet per person, according to PwC.
As e-commerce sales continue to grow, analysts were already seeing brick and mortar retail space shrink and transform before then pandemic. Now, however, “some prognosticators think we’re not only overretailed, we’re underdemolished,” Carlock said. “There will be retail that will be demolished and repurposed, and then there will be retail that continues to support our lifestyles and is relevant and is useful and is important,” he told Fast Company.
As the pandemic changes the face of retailing, PwC says that “necessity-based” retail, including grocery stores, pharmacies and other “neighborhood-oriented” retailers will remain relevant. Carlock estimated that physical retail space in the U.S. may ultimately looks more like Canada’s average 16 square feet, representing a 30% decrease in physical retail space in the U.S.
As retail rents drop – Fast Company reported that in New York alone, retail rents in major commercial areas have declined approximately 13% in the third quarter 2020 – the repurposing and reuse of former retail space in desirable areas may be on the rise. In addition, Carlock told Fast Company that the demolition of existing underused retail can make use for other residential or mixed use development.
As Pandemic Drags On, Consumers Seeking Health Drive Record Natural & Organic Sales as Retailers Adapt to Change
This article originally appeared in Presence Marketing’s August 2020 newsletter edition and on New Hope Network’s IdeaXchange.
By Steven Hoffman
More than five months have passed since the nation and world have come under the grip of the coronavirus. Today, as Covid-19 continues to surge throughout the U.S., we wait in lines to get into stores, wear face coverings (well, at least most of us), follow floor markers to help ensure social distancing, and shop quickly to get in and out with our groceries. The days of browsing, sampling product, and being entertained by large merchandising displays and the “theater of food” have made way in large part for safety and efficiency as consumers change their shopping behavior in brick and mortar stores, and increasingly turn to options including online ordering, curbside pickup and delivery.
One thing is for sure, though. The coronavirus crisis is bringing out better eating habits, based on recent sales data, as Americans seek to improve their health and immunity, and as core natural and organic consumers double down on healthy, clean food to help ensure the health and safety of their families during these “safer at home” times.
In fact, natural and organic products are experiencing significantly higher sales in 2020, and that trend may continue. After seeing a 39% spike in sales due to stockpiling for the four weeks ending March 22, 2020, compared to the same period in 2019, natural products retail sales for the four weeks ending June 14, 2020, increased 14% over the previous year, according to market research firm SPINS, as reported in New Hope Network’s Natural Products Industry Health Monitor. And that’s after back-to-back 18% increases in the four week periods ending April 19 and May 17, respectively, reported SPINS.
Chart Source: New Hope Network, SPINS
Organic Food and Beverage Sales Surge 25%
Bloomberg reported in July that Americans “are prioritizing nutrition over cost as Covid-19 infections continue to rise across the U.S.,” pointing to Nielsen data showing that sales of organic food and beverages surged 25% for the 17-week period ending June 27, 2020. Organic meat, seafood and frozen food saw the largest increases, Bloomberg reported. “We’re expecting strength to continue in organic and natural food sales,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Bartashus in the article. Given the lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus, “a lot of people have used the opportunity of working from home to really make a lifestyle change – lose weight and exercise,” she said.
At the same time, Bloomberg noted, while unemployment has skyrocketed and value matters more than ever, declines in discretionary spending have allowed more room for premium and specialty foods, including natural and organic products. “People are starting to look at what they’re consuming more thoughtfully now,” Ted Robb, CEO of New Barn Organics, told Bloomberg. “People are not going to fly. They’re not going to the salon. Even though we’re in a recession, and people are trying to be careful, food is one area where they can spend a little bit more,” he said.
Dietary supplements, too, are benefitting from a focus on immunity and health, leading to the highest growth rate in over 20 years for this category, reported Nutrition Business Journal. NBJ projects supplement sales in 2020 will grow 12.1% across all categories, with immunity supplements growing more than 50%, to surpass $50 billion in sales. Of note, NBJ projects that e-commerce sales of nutritional supplements will grow a whopping 61.4% in 2020, compared to 7.1% in brick and mortar stores. Longer term, online sales of supplements could increase from 10% of the market in 2019 to 20% of the overall market by 2023, NBJ predicts.
Other natural and organic categories benefitting from the coronavirus crisis, according to SPINS and New Hope Network, include shelf-stable beans, grains and rice, which took off in March with 160% growth for the four weeks ending March 22, and which still reported a robust 26% growth rate in June. Sales of plant-based meat alternatives have risen significantly, too, as coronavirus cases at meat processing plants may have led to negative perceptions of the conventional meat industry and its supply chain.
Categories in sharp decline, however, as people continue to stay closer to home include cosmetics and beauty products, weight management formulas, water bottles and filtration, body care kits, deodorants and antiperspirants, and shelf-stable jerky and meat snacks, reported SPINS and New Hope.
Fighting for Foot Traffic
In examining how the pandemic is shifting consumer behaviors, research firm Gravy Analytics compared foot traffic at four leading groceries including Wegman’s, Whole Foods Market, Safeway and Publix through June 2020. Foot traffic at these stores was typical in February and early March. This was interrupted by a spike in mid-March when consumers began pantry loading. Subsequently, foot traffic at all four supermarkets in the study declined, reaching its lowest point in mid-April before leveling off in June, according to Gravy Analytics.
While all supermarkets in the study were impacted by the pandemic, Whole Foods Market fared worse, according to the data. For the week of June 14, foot traffic to Safeway and Publix was 28% and 26% lower, respectively, compared to the week of February 2. Yet, Whole Foods Market’s foot traffic was 44% lower.
“However,” the Gravy Analytics researchers emphasized, “while foot traffic is an important indicator, it doesn’t necessarily mean that fewer consumers are shopping at Whole Foods and Wegman’s. Less foot traffic in store could be a reflection of consumers opting to use new curbside and delivery services. Regular Whole Foods customers, for example, might be purchasing their groceries through Amazon instead. Consumers might simply be less familiar with Publix, Safeway, and Wegman’s curbside pickup and delivery services, making them more inclined to go into the store. While convenience isn’t a new consumer behavior trend, it is becoming more prominent as stores find new ways to give consumers a safer shopping experience, and consumers become more familiar with these services,” they said.
In a panel hosted by Winsight Grocery Business in early July, former Whole Foods Co-CEO Walter Robb expressed concern over the reduction in store traffic, and an associated “de-emphasis” on in-store merchandising during the pandemic. “One thing we’re seeing across all retailers is less trips,” Robb told the panel. “And in retail, the trip is precious, just precious. And they have stepped back significantly. The basket is gone up to counter that, so it was supposed to come out even. But the nature of it is that with the way the store is set up now, it becomes more transactional. There’s much less of a value in merchandising, etc., because folks want to get in and get out. And so, you know, whether it’s the reduction of SKUs or whether it’s the fact that you’re flattening or spreading out your displays or whatever, I think, the advantage of physical stores that from a merchandise perspective, particularly a retailer like Whole Foods, is minimized as a result of this.”
Planning When Everything Is Changing
“How do we shape our promotional strategy in a time when everything is changing?” asked Jonathan Lawrence, Senior Director of Grocery & Natural Living for Fresh Thyme Farmers Market. Based in Downers Grove, IL, Fresh Thyme’s hybrid mix of 70% natural/organic to 30% conventional product offerings in its 74 stores located throughout the Midwest help shoppers get everything they need in a value-based, one-stop shopping format, Lawrence said. “How do we provide amazing customer service and promotion and at the same time respect social distancing? How do we reach customers and support them in a safe manner? That’s the challenge, but is absolutely what is needed,” Lawrence mused.
Lawrence confirmed that, like other retailers, the customer count at Fresh Thyme is down, but the average basket purchase is up. “We are ramping up with the idea that this may come back hard in the fall,” he said. “We are starting to plan for the immune season and how we are going to tackle it differently; our responsibility is to be there for our customers. There are categories leading the way that haven’t before, such as zinc, immune support products, hand sanitizer, etc. Now, they are spiking and we are sometimes having to think outside the box with our vendors to get product on the shelf. We might opt for a different size or a different product to have something on the shelf,” he said.
Fresh Thyme plans to open a new store in downtown St. Louis in 2021, and hopes to incorporate what it is learning now into the new concept. “You are going to see the new evolution of Fresh Thyme with the new store and also with planned remodels. We’re going to craft the product mix around the customer and the local community,” Lawrence said.
“How do we change the fluidity of our supply chain and food system? We need a shorter runway in our supply system, and that’s the challenge,” said Corinne Shindelar, founder and former president of the Independent Natural Foods Retail Association (INFRA). “As an industry, we have always been about system changes and trying to make things better. We now have the opportunity to change the system pretty rapidly because we have the ears of society like never before. We could be influencing a more dynamic and robust outcome, but only if we do the work. We don’t know how long this pandemic will last. As such, I would put many contingency plans into the budget,” she advised.
To save money on delivery services – Instacart charges up to 8%, said Shindelar - she recommends that independent retailers could do something as simple as add a line to a cell phone as an ordering hotline. “We overcomplicate things,” she said. Shindelar also advised retailers to consider what to reopen. “If you were losing money at food service, with high labor costs and low margins, now is the time to consider working with local restaurants and food service operators that retailers can feature as grab-and-go meal solutions,” she advised.
Walter Robb, who served as co-CEO of Whole Foods Market when it became one of Instacart’s high profile partners, advised retailers on the Winsight Grocery Business panel to be sure to capture customer data when working with a third party delivery service. “If you don’t capture the data on your customers and know who they are, what they’re buying and be able to look at their basket adjacencies and the analytics, then you’re breathing in the dark in terms of growing business,” he cautioned.
At Cambridge Natural Foods, located in the heart of Boston, the family-owned business felt the shock of universities and colleges nearby closing, and people leaving the city for second homes when they could to escape the pandemic, said cofounder Michael Kanter. Out of an overabundance of caution, the store initially closed for a week in mid-March and then opened for curbside and delivery only. It fully reopened its doors on July 7, to the community’s – and family’s – relief. “In hindsight, it was painful to close, but we also saw that our staff and customers were vulnerable,” said Kanter. “Now, we are limiting the number of customers in the store, we’ve installed plexiglass protection, we’re doing a lot of curbside pickup and delivery, and we’ve limited hours to help keep our staff safe and sane. We’re back to about three-fifths of our normal volume,” he said.
There may be a silver lining in what we learn from the pandemic, Kanter offered. “We weren’t so conscious of public health and hygiene in public places before. We kind of know we are a part of each other but until you experience something like this, you don’t think about it. Now we are much more aware of how what we do affects others. Maybe that will propel us forward into realizing that caring and sharing are paramount in society.”
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Mass Market Sales of Hemp-derived CBD Predicted to Rise Significantly
Photo: Pexels
Originally Appeared in Presence Marketing News, February 2020
By Steven Hoffman
Look out, specialty CBD retailers, the mass market is coming on. According to a survey conducted by Nutrition Business Journal, CBD supplements and beauty products are now sold in more channels than perhaps any other product in “the history of human commerce,” including natural food stores, pharmacies, supermarkets, doctor’s offices, coffee shops, bookstores, boutiques, fitness clubs, smoke shops, dispensaries, convenience stores and gas stations. Consumer awareness of CBD increased from 47% in 2018 to 70% in 2019, according to NBJ’s survey, and product sales continue to grow at a rapid pace. “The largest shift between 2018 and 2020 is projected to happen in mass market retail, increasing from under 1% of the market in 2018 to almost a quarter of sales in 2020,” says NBJ, which attributes much of that growth to the sales of topical hemp-derived CBD products. However, NBJ predicts that mass market channels will continue to see success in CBD sales as more stores offer dietary supplement product options. NBJ estimates that sales of hemp-based CBD products will reach $4 billion by 2023.
Customers Name Seven NCG Co-ops as their States’ Top Independent Grocers
Photo: Pexels
Originally Appeared in Presence Marketing News, February 2020
By Steven Hoffman
Using data from Yelp and Google Trends, market research firm 24/7 Tempo recently released a ranking of top supermarkets and grocery stores in each state. In seven U.S. states, customers ranked retail food co-ops, all members of the National Co+op Grocers Association (NCG), as their favorite independent grocery stores, reports the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA). “Unlike corporate grocery chains, food co-ops are totally independent and owned by the community members who shop there. Instead of focusing on investors, food co-ops focus on providing fresh, healthy food for shoppers, creating sustainable jobs for employees, building a strong regional food system for everyone, and giving back to their community,” said C.E. Pugh, CEO of NCG, told NCBA. “It’s no surprise that so many shoppers appreciate the value of their community-owned food co-op, but few industries are as competitive as the grocery business, so that makes us especially proud of our member co-ops achieving these hard-earned rankings. It’s a true testament to our co-ops working diligently to serve their members and communities, and toward the day when everyone has the fresh, healthy food they deserve,” she added. Customers voted the following seven retail food co-ops as their favorite independent grocery store.
• Alaska: Co-op Market Grocery & Deli, Fairbanks
• Maine: Portland Food Co-op, Portland
• Nevada: Great Basin Community Food Co-op, Reno
• New Mexico: Mountain View Market, Las Cruces
• North Carolina: Tidal Creek Cooperative Food Market, Wilmington
• Tennessee: Three Rivers Market, Knoxville
• Vermont: City Market/Onion River Co-op, Burlington
Hemp Harassment: Leading Online Retailer Thrive Market Forced to Cease Sales of All Hemp and CBD Products in Banking Backlash
Originally Appeared in Let’s Talk Hemp Newsletter, June 2019
By Steven Hoffman
In a seeming backlash to the burgeoning hemp economy, hemp and CBD retailers, industry associations and other hemp-centric businesses are being denied or threatened with denial of banking, credit card processing and other key business services, including a national newswire service that announced this past month it will no longer accept press releases from hemp companies, and is, in fact, deleting all existing and previously issued press releases related to hemp and CBD from its online archives. It is a disturbing trend in an industry that was made legal across the U.S. as a result of the 2018 Farm Bill and is projected to grow to $26.6 billion by 2025.
It has forced such retailers as leading online natural products grocer Thrive Market to cease sales of all hemp and CBD products, a best-selling category over the past 18 months on its nationally recognized ecommerce site. The member-based online retailer boasts more than 500,000 members. “In early June, we received a notice from our merchant processor demanding that we cease the sale of all hemp and CBD products on Thrive Market. We unfortunately have no choice but to comply, and we’ll begin removing our assortment as early as Thursday, June 20,” wrote Thrive Market’s cofounder and CEO Nick Green in his blog on June 17. As of this writing, clicking on that assortment link takes you to a blank product page on Thrive Market’s website.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Hemp Authority, a not-for-profit trade group developing certification standards for the industry, lost payment processing services in June after being dropped by its vendor, Stripe, based in San Francisco, reported Hemp Today on June 20. According a report in CNN Business, Stripe said it dropped the U.S. Hemp Authority’s account because of liability concerns, despite the fact that the trade organization is not a seller of any hemp products. “We’re being told we’re high risk. We’re actually trying to minimize human risk,” Hemp Authority president Marielle Weintraub told CNN.
Abrupt Notice
Since a leading credit card processor, Elavon, a subsidiary of U.S. Bank, abruptly notified its hemp and CBD clients in March 2019 that it had recategorized hemp and CBD merchants as a “prohibited business type” and was backing out within 45 days of handling payment processing for such companies, a number of hemp businesses have been scrambling to establish secure and durable payment processing relationships. According to one estimate by Philippa Burgess, cofounder of MMJ FinSol, a Denver-based financial services solutions company for hemp, cannabis and other “high-risk” businesses, Elavon’s policy changes affected up to 40,000 CBD companies.
Another merchant processor, Fortress Payment Technologies, in May 2019 notified all its ecommerce customers selling CBD products that they would no longer be able to process Visa credit card payments through the bank. Some sellers received less than eight hours’ notice of these changes, reported Folium Biosciences, a vertically integrated hemp-derived phytocannabinoid producer based in Colorado Springs. The company recently launched a CBD/hemp friendly financial services platform for its customers to help remove the financial hurdles faced by the CBD industry, it said.
Kyle Rapoza, cofounder of Vermont-based Mansfield Provisions, which distributes CBD products online and through brick and mortar retail partnerships, lost credit card processing services for his company in late May 2019, when Elavon stopped doing business with the hemp industry. He explained to Ganjapreneur Magazine that, in the wake of Elavon’s action, many of the industry operators he knows and does business with are moving back to high risk (and high fee) accounts. Rapoza has since been able to access more traditional business accounts through a state credit union, Ganjapreneur reported.
Biggest Challenge Facing the Hemp Industry
It’s a “difficult time” for the industry as it related to financial services, which he called “the biggest challenge in the industry right now,” Jonathan Miller, general counsel for Kentucky-based industry association Hemp Roundtable, told Ganjapreneur. “The law, we believe, is clear that since the [2018 Farm Bill], hemp and CBD are no longer controlled substances. There should be no concern whatsoever that there would be violations of federal law to engage in commerce. …Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation – it’s banks, it’s credit card companies, it’s merchant services that have been refusing to do business with these hemp and CBD companies.”
Because banks have been so hesitant to serve hemp and CBD businesses despite the legalization of hemp in the Farm Bill, U.S. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Ron Wyden (R-OR) – chief proponents of legalizing hemp – in April 2019 sent individualized letters to four federal banking and financial regulatory institutions, imploring them to prevent banking discrimination of the hemp industry, reported Cannalaw Blog.
In addition, when pressed by U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) at a hearing in June 2019, Marijuana Moment reported that Federal Reserve board member Michelle Bowman pledged to inform banks that they can service hemp businesses. When Tester asked specifically how the Fed is advising institutions when it comes to hemp, Bowman responded, “We have not told them that they cannot bank them.” Tester countered that while he and Bowman might be on the same page, it is possible that banks were hearing a different message—hence why hemp businesses have said that they’re still experiencing difficulties accessing credit. Tester said clarification is especially important at this stage because of fallout from trade wars with China and Mexico, as hemp represents a potentially lucrative crop for American farmers. “I would agree with you. We would not discourage banks from banking these types of customers,” Bowman said. “We’ll try to clarify that. Hemp is not an illegal crop.”
What, No Press Releases?
While certain merchant banks seek to stifle hemp industry growth through the denial of critical financial services, another service provider in the media newswire business seeks to silence its voice.
One leading hemp industry media and event production company, Colorado Hemp Company, based in Loveland, CO – producer of the NoCo Hemp Expo, Southern Hemp Expo, and the Let’s Talk Hemp weekly newsletter and podcast – was recently informed by its newswire service, ReleaseWire, that it will not post or distribute any new press releases that mention hemp, and in addition, it was deleting all existing and previous press releases mentioning hemp that Colorado Hemp Company had posted in the past. In a policy update issued on May 8, 2019, ReleaseWire, one of the nation’s leading online national newswire services, issued the following statement, after which it began informing hemp-centric businesses that not only were they not accepting new press releases for distribution, they were deleting all existing press releases and archives related to cannabis, hemp or CBD:
“ReleaseWire was recently contacted by our credit card processor and informed that they have a policy in place that restricts merchants, including ReleaseWire, from linking to, or providing information about, marijuana, cannabis, CBD, hemp and related products. As such, we have been instructed by our credit card processor that we must not only stop taking press release submissions on these topics, but we must remove any existing press releases and related content from our site. They have provided us with a small window of time to complete this process or risk losing the ability to process credit cards.”
Meanwhile, other newswire services including Cision, owner of PR Newswire and PRWeb, continue to accept and publish hemp, CBD and cannabis related press releases on behalf of clients.
Hemp Friendly Payment Processors
So which payment processors are willing to serve hemp and CBD companies? One such processor, Adept Payments, says on its website that it helps high risk businesses, including vape, CBD, adult, casinos and more.
While financial services group, Edward Jones, has no official policy about outreach to the hemp industry, a broker in Bend, OR, contacted Hemp Industry Daily to say he was offering a “full spectrum of banking, investment, insurance and financial planning services to hemp farmers.” Officially, Edward Jones is “looking at the provision in the Farm Bill that addresses hemp growing,” John Boul, manager of global media relations for the St. Louis-based Edward Jones told Hemp Industry Daily in April 2019.
Square, a leading online payment processor, recently soft-launched credit card processing for CBD companies, but the program is still in beta testing phase and is by invitation only. Former credit card processing professional and current blogger Phillip Parker, who describes his site, CardPaymentOptions.com, as a credit card processing watchdog group, posted a guide to the Best Merchant Accounts for Hemp Products in June 2019. Also, Merchant Maverick, a self-described comparison website that reviews and rates credit card processors, mobile payment services and other small business software, published a guide to the Best CBD Oil Merchant Account Providers in April 2019.
For CBD sellers on Shopify and other major ecommerce platforms, a recently launched processor, Organic Payment Gateways, advertises that its mission is to help people in the CBD business process payments online, and that its payment gateways work smoothly with Shopify, WooCommerce and others. Leap Payments, Instabill and other services promote that they are dedicated to ensuring CBD businesses “can accept debit and credit card payments just like any other business can.”
So, for now, you won’t find any hemp or CBD products at Thrive Market, however, the ecommerce retailer says it won’t give up without a fight. “We believe that ethical and sustainable hemp is another cause worth fighting for, so rest assured that we will be working behind the scenes in the coming weeks to get hemp products back on Thrive Market,” Nick Green wrote in his blog. “In fact, we’re already in conversations with a new processing partner to try to make that happen.”
Kroger, Nation’s Largest Supermarket, to Carry CBD in Nearly 1,000 Stores
Originally Appeared in Let’s Talk Hemp Newsletter, June 2019
By Steven Hoffman
As the hemp and CBD market continues to evolve at hyper-speed, the nation’s largest supermarket chain, Kroger, announced it is joining Walgreens, CVS, Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Nieman Marcus and other major retailers that have all started carrying CBD products in their stores.
Kroger, which made a “meaningful investment” in Boulder, CO-based natural foods chain Lucky’s Market, which itself is a leading seller of CBD products, announced on June 11 that it will now sell hemp-derived CBD topical products, including creams, balms and oils, in 945 Kroger-owned stores across 17 states, reported CNBC News, which referred to CBD as “one of the hottest consumer trends.”
“Like many retailers, we are starting to offer our customers a highly-curated selection of topical products like lotions, balms, oils and creams that are infused with hemp-derived CBD,” said Kristal Howard, head of corporate communications and media relations at Kroger, in a statement. “CBD is a naturally occurring and non-intoxicating compound that has promising benefits and is permitted within federal and state regulations. Our limited selection of hemp-derived CBD topical products is from suppliers that have been reviewed for quality and safety,” she added.
Consumer interest in and demand for products made with cannabinoid compounds or CBD derived from hemp extract is at a fever pitch. Hemp Industry Daily projects hemp-derived CBD retail sales will surge to as much as $7.5 billion by 2023, up from about $1 billion in sales in 2019.
Yet, while CBD derived from hemp is now legal thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill passed by Congress late last year, the FDA maintains that companies still can’t add CBD to food or sell it as a dietary supplement. However, with so many CBD supplements and CBD-infused food and beverage products already on the market, the FDA on May 31 held a public hearing to learn more about the issue and hear from hemp industry representatives, manufacturers, advocates and others as it considers its position regarding sales of these products.
For major retailers, selling CBD-infused, topical beauty and skin-care products brings less legal risk, which may explain why retailers such as Kroger, Nieman Marcus and others are starting to offer those types of products first. Given the explosive growth of the market, big box retailers Walmart and Target are also reported to be exploring the potential for hemp and CBD-related products in their stores.
Kroger, headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, is the world’s largest grocery retailer, with fiscal 2018 sales of $121.2 billion, and operating stores under names including Kroger, King Soopers, Ralph’s, Dillon’s, City Market, Fry’s, QFC, Mariano’s, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter and others. Kroger also is a leading seller of healthy lifestyles products – it’s sales of natural and organic products alone exceeded $16 billion in 2017. Kroger’s private label organic brand, Simple Truth, with sales exceeding $2 billion, is one of the largest natural and organic brands in the U.S.
Kroger says it will sell the CBD products in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.