Complaints

This profile includes complaints for Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

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Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers has 16 locations, listed below.

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  Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers

  12612 W Alameda Pkwy Lakewood, CO 80228-2824

• 

  Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers

  3333 S Wadsworth Blvd Lakewood, CO 80227-5122

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  Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers

  5058 E Hampden Ave Denver, CO 80222-7329

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  Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers

  2355 30th St Boulder, CO 80301-1103

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  Vitamin Cottage Natural Grocers

  9567 S University Blvd Highlands Ranch, CO 80126-7897

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/08/2025

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I am writing to formally file a complaint against Natural Grocers due to the unacceptable and obstructive behavior I have experienced while trying to obtain security footage from an accident that occurred directly in front of one of their store locations.I was involved in a car accident right outside their store and have been trying to access the security footage for legal and investigative purposes. Natural Grocers presents itself as a company that values family, community, and customer service, but my experience has been the opposite.Initially, I was told that I needed to bring the police to obtain the footage. I complied. Then I was told that my lawyer needed to make the request, which we did. Now, Natural Grocers is claiming that only the police can request the footage but through a different number. This constant shifting of responsibility has resulted in unnecessary delays and has severely impacted my ability to handle the situation appropriately.Not only does this behavior reflect a lack of transparency, but it also shows a disturbing disregard for legal authorities and processes. Their refusal to cooperate, despite multiple attempts from both law enforcement and legal representatives, is unacceptable.I urge the BBB to look into this matter and encourage Natural Grocers to uphold the values they publicly promote by cooperating with lawful and reasonable requests.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/28/2024

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I used to do a lot of my shopping at Natural Grocers. Since 2021, there have been inconsistencies in product quality with a decrease in regulation in the manufacturing industry. Supply shortages caused product inventory to not be restocked for months at a time. The grocers often tell me I am the only person who has returned an item I informed them was defective or a fake, so there must not be a problem with the product quality otherwise other people would have returned it.The average American will return a defective item to a retail store with an explanation of the quality issue expecting that the store will address the problem; if they purchase the same item from the same store a few months later, they expect a normal quality as a result of their return feedback. When products continue to be sold at the same unacceptable quality after a return was made, it alerts the customers that defective or fake products in their inventory is not a problem for the grocers. At that point, they cease making returns because they do not want to be profiled for consumer displacement.Purchases made with debit are refunded in cash so the amount of returns I have had to make are not completely listed in my Natural Grocers debit transaction history uploaded to this complaint.I have to do a lot of my shopping for the products I used to get at Natural Grocers from a variety of online retailers and pay extra for shipping.Your return policy limiting returns to 2 items per receipt places the burden on the customers to throw defective or fake products away and lose the money. Your company should be shouldering the burden of rejecting products sent from vendors who failed to prevent it from being poisoned.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/09/2024

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Business has very inaccurate and plentiful price tags misleading the consumer and inadequately representing low prices advertised

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/08/2024

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I bought groceries at Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage and wrote them a check for $90.08 to pay. On October 25th that check posted to my bank account twice. I called my local Nat. Grocers and they said to handle it through my bank. I called my bank, explained the check had posted twice, they could clearly see it on my account so the bank filed a claim to get the proper credit back to me for one of the debits, which I received on November 11th. On December 7th I received a letter from a collections agency stating Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers was trying to collect $90.08 that we owe them. We do not owe them. The collection agency wants me to email or mail a bank statement to prove this claim is incorrect. This is Vitamin Cottages responsibility to correct THEIR error.I spent the entire afternoon after receiving the collection notice and the following day (taking off work since this is a time sensitive issue with the collections agency) trying to contact a person at Vitamin Cottage corporate office, leaving voicemails and sending email to get some help. I was able to contact our local store manager, who was as helpful as she could be, but have yet to hear from anyone at the corporate level, which ** told is who I need to speak with. This has taken too much of my time for something that is their mistake, twice.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/28/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On Sep 17, we bought a 14oz bag of ************** Hazelnut Flour from the Natural Grocers store in *********. The bag was in the back of the store on shelves with other products. The price was reduced from $15.39 to $12.31 as a "Sale Price" according to the sticker on the package. We got charged $15.39.When we got home we noticed the expiration date on the bag was within a few days. Other ***'s Red Mill Flour products would typically have an expiration date of about 6 months in the future, so we knew this one was at the end of its usable life and that it had been sitting on the shelf for many months. Since this was a cooking ingredient, we planned to use small amounts in recipes over several months.Two days later, we went to the store, with our receipt and the unopened bag. We explained that we didnt want to pay for something that would be expiring soon.The cashier said it was a clearance item and we could not get a refund. I spoke with the store manager who refused to make an exception. I called the corporate office and spoke with someone who told me there were absolutely no exceptions to their policy of no returns for clearance items.I explained I didnt know about the no-refund policy. She said the policy is on the Returns and Refunds page of their website. I explained that most consumers dont thoroughly read a companys website before checking out. Then the representative said the policy is listed on the receipt. I explained that a customer wouldnt see that until after the sale. Then the representative said the no refunds policy was on a sign at the register. It isnt, and it wasnt on the shelf where this product was located. The representative was just making up unacceptable excuses to make us keep the product they knew would expire before they could get it sold. Im very disappointed that Natural Grocers seems has such a poor policy and practice reinforced from the corporate headquarters down to the checkout isle.

  Business Response

  Date: 10/04/2022

  Hello,

  Please see the attached response. 

  Thank you,

  ************************

  Customer Relations Manager

  Customer Answer

  Date: 10/04/2022

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  I hope that better care will be given in the future to display signage where items soon to expire are being sold with a sign that says, "On Sale - May ** Expiring Soon." Otherwise, other than your regular customers, most people wouldn't know why some items are on sale and returnable, but other items are on sale and not returnable.

  Also, it would be nice to give store managers the flexibility to make some exceptions where warranted -- such as the flour I purchased that was almost a year old and expiring in a few days. I appreciate your response, and the gift certificate which covers the cost of the item and the effort expended to get the issue resolved. 

  I've attached the purchase receipt for your records, to document that we were charged the full price for the item despite it having a sale price sticker on it. It would be good if employees were instructed regarding the lower price, or perhaps we were overcharged because the barcode reading brought up the non-sale price if the registers were not updated with the lower price.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************