Wednesday, March 18, 2009

That's Natural Loses Significant Distributer due to Corporate Decision

This week, the loss of one of our primary distribution sites for the That's Natural! publication was confirmed by the corporate management of Vitamin Cottage. In spite of a valiant effort by the manager of the Pueblo branch, the store's parent company, Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets Inc. has chosen to include That's Natural! in their new policy to remove all publications from their stores. The reason for this change, as relayed to our supportive branch manager, is that the company wishes to avoid distribution requests from companies unrelated to Vitamin Cottage's products and services.

Tell Vitamin Cottage to support local publications whose services and advertisements are in line with the company's mission!
Here is what I wrote:
I was extremely disappointed to find out that Vitamin Cottage will no longer allow local publications to be distributed at their stores. Although I understand that sifting through the various publications in order to decide which publications to allow for distribution, I thought that you would recognize publications whose missions are shared with the goal of providing health education. I am speaking, of course, of That's Natural Publication, which is distributed in Pueblo County. Many of us readers look for the publication at the only health food store in Pueblo while we shop. We often also read the publications provided within the store. We will now be forced to find other sources to pick up our copies of the magazine. Additionally, I will do my best not to support Vitamin Cottage as long as it clearly does not want to support local businesses. I agree that you may be inundated with requests to host stands for other newspapers, but rather than creating a sweeping decision, you would do better to allow for local managers to make decisions regarding their stores and the customers they serve.