Kroger chasing healthy customers with Simple Truth

Kroger created a billion-dollar brand in less than two years with its natural food house label Simple Truth and on Wednesday executives predicted it will double its volume in a few years.

"Simple Truth is differentiating us from our competitors and showing up in our numbers," said Michael Donnelly, Kroger's senior vice president of merchandizing, told hundreds of analysts at the Northern Kentucky's METS Center. Kroger's top executives were courting Wall Street's biggest investment houses for the company's annual investors day event.

Kroger executives credit their growing market share partially on their push into natural and organic food. The drive to appeal to more health-conscious consumers will only continue: Kroger executives also touted their $280 million acquisition of Florida-based Vitacost.com, which sells nutrition and healthy living products via the Internet.

Kroger's health kick isn't the supermarket's idea alone: Cincinnati-based consumer insights firm dunnhumbyUSA issued a report Wednesday saying health-committed shoppers have increased by 38 percent in the last five years and their ranks spend 24 percent more on food items.

Kroger credits dunnhumbyUSA research with informing many of its strategic decisions. Kroger is a majority owner of dunnhumbyUSA.

Kroger executives noted the nation's No. 1 supermarket chain has grown market share 2 to 7 percent each year since 2005 even as major competitors, including Walmart struggled.

The company's pitch may have worked: Kroger's stock hit a new all-time high of $55 per share on Wednesday.

Outside the investor forum, Indiana-based gun control group Moms Demand Action staged a protest of Kroger's refusal to ban the open carrying of firearms in its stores.

About 40 protesters gathered outside the center, chanting "groceries not guns." The group wants Kroger to forbid shoppers from bringing guns to stores – something the grocer claims rarely happens.

Kroger defers to state and local laws that govern where gun owners can carry their firearms.