Vitamin Cottage is my favorite stop for produce and natural cosmetics and eco-friendly cleaners in the Denver Metro area (the store pictured is at 15th and Platte, near REI). 
I don’t know how their buyers do it with few economies of scale, but VC’s prices are always lower than those at Whole Foods and often lower than prices at King Soopers for similar products. VC has better organic produce than King Soopers (which has the most pathetic organic lettuce I’ve ever seen—I always want to do an intervention for the poor things) and a really great selection of nuts and seeds.
It stocks some cheeses, though not the kind of selection you’ll find at Marczyk’s (or even Whole Foods) and is beginning to sell more meat.
Vitamin Cottage began in Golden in 1955 as a door-to-door natural supplements business founded by Margaret and Philip Isely. It is still family-run and has stores in Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.
Lately it’s been trying to rebrand itself as Vitamin Cottage Natural Foods Markets or Natural Foods at Vitamin Cottage or some such name. The point is that these days it sells more food than supplements. Whatever. If you must have Annie’s or Seventh Generation products, go there.
As we like to say, it’s not Health Food if you can’t afford to buy it. Pretty much every decision we make starts with “Will it affect our costs in a way that causes our prices to rise?”. Because if it might, then we don’t.
Thanks for the shout-out. Look for announcement of longer store hours in the next few days.
Store locations and hours at http://www.VCNFM.com
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