2025 Natural Grocers Sustainability Report

Letter from Our Co-Presidents

We are pleased to present the Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc. Sustainability Report for the fiscal year 2025 reporting period.

Natural Grocers ® has a legacy of being a values-driven company. Our commitment to building a healthy, sustainable future for our customers, our good4U SM Crew (Crew), and our communities is authentic. We work hard to ensure that our stores, operations and supply chain reflect these values. In our fiscal year 2025 report, we are proud to feature our differentiated nutrition education program, and highlight the quality and transparency of our product standards. Nutrition Education

When our parents founded the company in 1955, it was on the conviction that nutrition is the foundation of good health. For the past seventy years, we have provided free nutrition education because we believe it empowers our customers, Crew and communities to improve their well-being. Our company’s approach to nutrition education is evidence-based and research-backed. To bring this commitment to life, we have a full-time Nutritional Health Coach (NHC) position in every store, setting us apart from our peers. Our NHCs are passionate, credentialed experts who offer free, one on-one coaching, nutrition education and recipe demo classes, and personalized shopping support—not just for customers, but for Crew members too. In fiscal year 2025, we invested more than $7 million to offer free nutrition education services. For more information about our Nutrition Education program please see pages 8 to 11 of this report. Things We Won’t Carry and Why

Studies show that offering nutrition education in a trusted, convenient setting—like a grocery store—removes barriers to access and encourages real time application of healthier nutritional choices. Please see page 8 for more information. In-store nutrition education empowers customers to turn knowledge into action

We believe that our commitment to carrying carefully vetted products that prioritize nutritional health has differentiated us from our peers and established our thought leadership within the grocery industry. Our philosophy since the company's founding is that food should be natural, nourishing, and taste good. When we assess food ingredients, we ask this primary question: is this ingredient being added because it supports the nutritional health and wellbeing of the consumer? Through our product standards, we strive to carry ingredients that support nutritional health and wellbeing. At Natural Grocers, quality is measured as much by what we don’t sell as by what we do. Through our product standards, we strive to avoid carrying products made with problematic ingredients, including many highly processed ingredients including artificial and synthetic chemicals and additives that are legally allowed to be added to food. In 1990 our company created a dynamic list of the most problematic ingredients and an explanation why we will not carry them. Our company's quality standards team monitors the latest research and meets regularly to review specific ingredients, resulting in on going modifications and updates to this list. As of October 2025, the list comprised more than 500 problematic ingredients. For example, Natural Grocers’ grocery standards have always prohibited products containing synthetic colors, which we define as any food coloring derived from a non-food source, often from a petrochemical source, and required to be labeled as color additives under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C). In January 2025, the FDA issued an order to revoke the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA announced a series of measures to phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply. Prohibiting products containing synthetic colors since 1955 is just one example of our company’s thought leadership within the grocery industry. For more information please see page 18 of this report, and the full list at Things We Won’t Carry and Why.

Kemper Isely, Co-President

Zephyr Isely, Co-President

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NATURAL GROCERS ® | SUSTAINABILITY REPORT