First Coast Register October/November 2015 | Page 8

Jacksonville Beach has “gone native” with help from a local natural
foods market chain, Native Sun. The all-organic natural foods store,
opened its third location in September in Jacksonville Beach at 1585 3rd
St., N.
Native Sun was founded in Mandarin 1996 by Jacksonville native
Aaron Gottlieb and his wife, Erica. The store now has three locations
– one in Mandarin, one off of State Road 9A and one in Jacksonville
Beach along A1A. Gottlieb still lives in Mandarin with his wife and their
daughter Edyn, 15, and son Asher, 7.
But even with Mandarin as their first store location and their base
of operations, Gottlieb sees Jacksonville as a collection of unified but
distinct neighborhoods – with more and more people choosing natural
foods.
“The grocery business is a neighborhood business. We were glad to
come to Jacksonville before it had natural foods—but the Beaches have
always been a goal,” Gottlieb said. “The Beach has just been calling.”
When the first store opened in 1996, Native Sun was the only option
for shoppers who wanted to purchase organic groceries. Now that many
chain supermarkets offer organic options, Gottlieb says that Native Sun
customers return because of the high standards and responsiveness
offered by the grocery store.
“I want to be able to go at home at night and sleep knowing not that
I made a great profit but that I was responsible to our mission, made
individual’s lives better and by giving them these choices and not
confusing them with fluff and not be so egotistical as to think that we’re
always right,” Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb sat down with the First Coast Register to talk more about
what sets Native Sun apart from other First Coast grocery chains and
where his passion for health originates.
How did you choose the location for the Jacksonville Beach store?
My wife and I started Native Sun back in 1996 when we incorporated
the company. People always wanted us to expand -- but our vision of
running a business at the time was to want one building so you could
control it and give consistent product. That’s the way my father, who had
a business in Jacksonville, instructed me to be.
But the grocery business is a neighborhood business. You can’t plant
one store and be a destination for a city forever. As a child I went to
Douglas Anderson, and my friends were all over town – at the Beaches,
in Riverside. I have had a deep commitment and yearning to be part of
one of the communities that I grew up in for years. The beach has just
been calling. I’ve been looking and looking.
The 9A store opened up because at the time