CEO has a natural way with business.

• Position: People - Michael Cianciarulo - Biography

Like many people in the supermarket industry, Michael Cianciarulo began his career bagging groceries. Today, Cianciarulo, 55, is chief executive of Earth Fare Inc., an Asheville-based chain of natural-food stores.

The natural-food industry is growing steadily in the United States. Federal guidelines that went into effect in October 2002 created a national standard for how products marketed as "organic" must be grown, raised or processed, giving the industry more credibility with consumers. Earth Fare, which sells natural and organic products, has benefited from that boost. The chain, which employs 600, had sales of $50 million in 2002 and is profitable. Cianciarulo predicts sales of $100 million by 2005.

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Earth Fare has seven stores--in Greensboro and Asheville; Mount Pleasant, Columbia, Greenville and Charleston, S.C.; and Athens, Ga. Stores are scheduled to open in Charlotte and Knoxville, Tenn., by mid-2004. Each store offers organic produce, a wine-and-cheese department, a meat-and-seafood counter, aisles of groceries and a cafe that sells prepared foods, organic juices and coffee.

When Cianciarulo came on board in 1998, Earth Fare, which was started by Asheville native and vegetarian Roger Derrough in 1975 as Dinner for the Earth, had a store in Asheville and one in Charleston. But Derrough needed someone with industry experience to help him expand the business.

Cianciarulo came from Orlando, Fla.-based Gooding's Supermarkets, an 18-store, $300 million chain, where he had started as a bagger while a student...