These days of January, customers who enter Herbolario Navarro stores are looking for both products to follow cleansing diets, after Christmas excesses, and to quell the effects of flu and colds. It is told by Pepe Navarro, general director of this Valencian family business specialized in herbal medicine and natural products.
There are many who turn to them in these times of climate crisis, calls for sustainability and ecological transition... let's say that they look back at what was already done in the 18th century, when this trade was born in the heart of Valencia. , recognized in 2011 with the National Small Business Award. "250 years ago the pharmacy as such did not exist, when someone needed a solution they had to go to the herbalist and where drugs are now consumed, before they were medicinal plants, roots... Everything was found there," explains the manager, sixth generation of a business that came into his family when his great-grandmother bought it for his grandfather.
Since then, Navarro explains that consuming natural products "has always been in fashion", but assumes that it is "a trend that is having a very positive trend", from which his firm benefits enormously. The firm closed 2022 with sales exceeding 36 million euros, an increase of more than 7% compared to the previous year.
And this 2023 that has just ended foresees an increase in sales of 15.69% and reaching 42 million euros. "People are increasingly looking to take better care of themselves, practicing more sports, and scientific studies help show that this allows us to be better and live healthier. It is an upward trend, although we still have a long way to go," says the businessman.
Their approach involves establishing themselves in new cities, as they want to be "the benchmark" of the sector also outside of Valencia. That is why in 2024 up to six new stores will open, the closest in Barcelona and Valencia. Their business operates in more cosmopolitan cities, such as Malaga, but also in other inland cities, such as Albacete, where they already have two large establishments, or Cuenca.
They offer cosmetics, but also fresh products, organic and vegan products, and self-help and meditation books, to name a few examples. The buyer can come in and make the purchase of the month at your business, although, at the moment, only 20% of your customers do that. "It happens like in any supermarket, they select what interests them most, without there being a star product. Now, for example, they seek to increase defenses, because they come for probiotics, or when there is a marathon or races, for supplements... varies a lot."
Your competitors are supermarkets, pharmacies or herbalists. "There is more and more offer for the buyer, so we look for differential value," says Navarro, who argues that they find it, among others, in the personalized attention of their 360 employees, or also in the commitment to local products and kilometer zero. "For us, suppliers are fundamental and we try to take care of them, we do not feel superior to them," defends the general director, who recounts his commitment to preferably selling brands behind which there is a consolidated family business.
Navarro also postulates the price, knowing that many of his products are above average. And although he defends that "it could be seen as a drawback, the fact that there are more expensive products has to make us feel proud because they have something to make them valued more: they are more sustainable, also socially, and they even belong to fair trade" , defends.
In relation to this, he criticizes greenwashing, from which he distances himself: "Nowadays labeling can generate confusion for the consumer, which is why it is important to understand what we buy when we buy," he maintains. A few years ago they joined forces with the To Good To Go mobile application against food waste and boast that since they launched it they have already managed to save up to 60,000 packs of products suitable for consumption, but not for sale, and prevent them from being become waste.
With more than 50 physical stores and an online sales channel, Navarro is building sustained growth that began to emerge three decades ago when they realized that their customers knew even more than they did about the products they sold, "which made us have to be very prepared." That is why they incorporated pharmacists, biologists, and even healthcare profiles to build more specialized care in line with a client eager for information. "We want to grow, but not lose our values or our family environment in which we defend taking care of our health and that of the planet," concludes Navarro.
