PowerTalk #38 Abe's Market - More Than The Intersection of Whole Foods and Amazon.com

Thanks for joining me this week on PowerTalk. I’m your host Chris Versace.  As you probably know each week I share my in-depth conversations with the movers and shakers in business with you. Some people ask me why I do this.....the answer is to bring you with me as I go behind the scenes and in the know so you can make more informed business or investing decisions. 

Joining me this week on PowerTalk is Richard Demb, the co-founder and CEO of Abe’s Market - a company that is exploding given the explosive demand for natural foods and products as well as the surge in demand for specialty products that are gluten-free, Paleo-friendly, Kosher or Raw.

Given how busy our lives are these days, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of Abe’s Market.  I could be wrong, but if your not a person that is looking for organic food and natural products, gluten-free solutions or some other healthy alternatives you may not have heard of Abesmarket.com.

Here’s the thing though, as you you through your local grocery store - a Kroger’s (KR), Safeway (SWY), Harris Teeter (HTSI), Publix Super Markets or some other one - if yours is like mine, your seeing more and more shelf space dedicated to natural, organic and gluten free products. Figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture find that retail sales of organic foods alone grew to $21.1 billion in 2008, up from $3.6 billion in 1997. According to Datamonitor, U.S. sales of gluten-free food and beverages are expected to reach $5.6 billion by 2015. That compares to other figures that put the market size for gluten free foods at $2.6 billion in 2010.

That’s some big growth and with people becoming increasingly concerned about the quality of the food we eat,  how its grown, raised, fertilized and so on there doesn’t seem to be any slowdown in sight for these types of products. Better yet, they are a proactive consumer -- the kind that a company would love to have. 

That combination has done wonders for companies like Whole Foods (WFM), The Fresh Market (TFM), Natural Grocers (NGVC), United Natural Foods (UNFI) and others.

Rather smartly, Abe’s Market co-founder and CEO Richard Demb realized  what this could mean when that demand for natural, organic and gluten free products was combined with the power of Internet retailing. Soon after Abe’s Market was born -- and today it brings you thousands of products that have the Abe’s stamp of approval across a number of categories including food, beauty, health, home and more. In short, Abe’s is kinda like a combination of Whole Foods meets Amazon.com (AMZN)

But there’s more...

Recently Abe’s Market launched a new service offering that I think your going to want to hear about - it’s led some people to call it  a Groupon (GRPN) Killer. 

All that in more ahead as we go behind the scenes and in the know during my PowerTalk with Richard Demb, co-founder and CEO of Abe's Market.