SIC 5499 All Other Specialty Food Stores

SIC 5499

This industry covers establishments primarily engaged in the retail sale of specialized foods not elsewhere classified, such as eggs, poultry, health foods, spices, herbs, coffee, and tea. The poultry stores may sell live poultry, slaughter and clean poultry for their own account, sell dressed fowls, or sell fowls cleaned and dressed by others.

NAICS CODE(S)

445210

Meat Markets

722211

Limited-Service Restaurants

446191

Food (Health) Supplement Stores

445299

All Other Specialty Food Stores

In the late 1990s, the fastest-growing sector of this industry was coffeehouses, which typically sell coffee drinks, as well as coffee beans and ground coffee. Led by Starbucks, coffeehouses continued their conspicuous growth in the early 2000s and represented the second largest segment of the industry behind health food and vitamin stores. Natural foods stores, fed in part by the growing popularity of organic foods (organic produce alone was expected to surpass $7 billion in sales in 2007), was another large growth sector of the industry in the early 2000s.

Los Angeles-based Herbalife International Inc., a developer of nutritional supplements, is a leader among health food and vitamin stores. Herbalife generated 1998 sales of more than $1.6 billion before floundering amidst plummeting stock prices and persistent allegations and litigation by the California Attorney General of running a pyramid scheme. A 1999 privatization bid left investors in the lurch, and Herbalife's growth slowed considerably. By 2005 Herbalife again announced sales of $1.6 billion, an increase of nearly 20 percent over 2004. New products, including an effervescent energy drink called Liftoff targeted at young consumers, and high-profile sponsorships at major sporting events, were credited for increased sales. Herbalife sells 130 products in 59 countries. Pittsburgh-based General Nutrition Inc. (GNC Corp), the largest global specialty retailer of nutritional supplements, reported consolidated revenues of $1.31 billion in 2005. This was a decline from the $1.34 billion the company recorded in 2004, primarily because of decreasing sales of diet products from company-owned stores.

The two biggest natural foods market chains at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Whole Foods Market Inc., of Austin, Texas, and Wild Oats Markets Inc., of Boulder, Colorado, were joined by Trader Joe's of Monrovia, California, at mid-decade. From 2004...