Bristol Farms always looks forward for natural product trends

As part of Natural Foods Merchandiser’s 2023 Market Overview, we talked with five independent natural products retailers to provide a more colorful, nitty-gritty picture of the forces and trends influencing business so far this year. These retailers’ stories are being published online on consecutive Tuesdays: Kimberton Whole Foods, on Sept. 10; Earth Fare, Sept. 17; BiRite, Sept. 24; St. Vrain Market on Oct. 1; and Bristol Farms on Oct. 8.

As with so many independent natural products retailers, Bristol Farms got its start long before the industry moved mainstream. The first Bristol Farms, opened in 1982 by Irv Gronsky and Mike Burbank, served as a community grocer in Rolling Hills, California. Today, 13 Bristol Farms stores dot Southern California.

Decades of experience navigating the industry’s wilderness of consumer forces and movements has made Bristol Farms’ trends antennae keenly sensitive. Some trends take off and lead to strong long-term sales. Others amount to brief eruptions of consumer interest before drifting away. Bristol Farms works hard to invest in the trends that stick.

One that seems to have legs today? Social tonics, including the growing parallel inventory of nonalcoholic beverages, says Darren Viscount, natural living senior category manager at Bristol Farms. Customers want drinks that offer specific health benefits, he says, so Bristol Farms leans into those types of beverages. “That includes any drink with nootropics, drinks that involve superfoods or lead to stress reduction,” he adds.

Related:The big picture: Natural and organic industry sales data for 2023

According to Viscount, any products connected to gut health thrived at Bristol Farms last year, and that includes probiotics—with twists. A legacy category that can sometimes come across as a bit long in the tooth, probiotics is catching renewed momentum thanks to new innovations. For instance, instead of probiotic products aimed exclusively at bolstering the gut microbiome, companies are expanding into additional health benefits, often by incorporating herbs and other botanicals.

These types of gut-health-plus products are doing well at Bristol Farms, says Viscount. They are also selling well industrywide. Nationally, growth in probiotics is expected to reach 6.5% in 2024, compared to 5.3% in 2023, according to Nutrition Business Journal.

Colostrum products are also gaining traction in Bristol Farms’ natural living section, Viscount says. Not long ago, products incorporating colostrum—powdered iterations of the first milk that cows yield after giving birth—barely registered as a sales blip.

On the pantry aisle, oils from plants other than seeds are booming. Olive oil dominates oil sales today, Viscount says, driven in part by recent news suggesting that seed-based oils like sunflower and canola oil spark inflammation.

Protein products hold the top spot in natural living, Viscount says, but, interestingly, Bristol Farms customers are shifting from buying plant-based proteins to whey proteins. 

Products touting their regenerative agriculture bona fides are doing OK, Viscount says. New regenerative products constantly arrive on the market, and Bristol Farms often supports them. But customers aren’t pushing demand.

“One challenge is how do you sell regenerative?” Viscount says. “For many of our customers, healing the Earth might not click. How does it benefit health? We don’t have the talking points for it yet. We’re still trying to figure it out. We, as an industry, have to understand how to promote it, and it will take work on our end to get across the talking points for customers.”