Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 10, 2026

Natural Grocers By Vitamin Cottage, Inc. (NGVC)

A forensic read on Natural Grocers By Vitamin Cottage, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.

B · Sound & dependable

Forensic grade

Safe

Financial health

2.9

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

15.5

P / E (ttm)

21.9%

ROE

$623M

Market cap

1.85%

Dividend yield

7.2%

Revenue growth

This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.

Natural Grocers By Vitamin Cottage, Inc. earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).

What the filings flag

+16.6%

FY2024→FY2025

Accruals ratio (% of NOA). Net operating assets grew +16.6% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by payables paid down 8% against +6% in cost of sales. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 5% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.

9.9%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 9.9% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 5% — around its ~9% cost of capital, so growth is roughly value-neutral.

+0.6%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share count. Diluted share count changed +2% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+0.6%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.

-82%

FY2021→FY2022

Dividend — cut. The payout was CUT ~82% in FY2022 (from FY2021) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$1.33B

Revenue Growth YoY+7.2%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+6.9%

Net Margin3.5%

Free Cash Flow$24.1M

Return on Equity21.9%

Debt / Equity0.00x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 10, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.