Jacksonville grocery store Native Sun closing its doors, cites 'dramatic increase of grocery stores'

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The owner of Native Sun Natural Foods Market posted Tuesday afternoon on Facebook that after 23 years, the grocery stores will be closing.

"I started the company with my wife Erica to bring organic foods to the Jacksonville community. It is exciting to see that clean food, free of GMO’s and harmful chemicals, is now accessible at traditional grocery stores as well as big box stores, gas stations, airports; almost anywhere you shop," Aaron Gotlieb wrote in the post. "The times are changing. Technology is changing. Communication is changing. Most of all, how people shop is changing. We are all blessed and cursed with what these changes bring."

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Gottlieb also mentioned that grocery stores in Jacksonville are "'sprouting' up like weeds; crowding each other out....'”.

Sprouts Farmer Market opened in the St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville less than 5 miles from Native Sun's Baymeadows location.

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Gottlieb did not indicate in the post a specific date the stores will close.

Native Sun started with one grocery store in 1997 and now owns three stores in  the Jacksonville area; one on Baymeadows Road near I-195, one in Mandarin and one in Jacksonville Beach.

Cox Media Group