After opening a Missoula store in October, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage plans to open a store in Helena this December and a store in Kalispell next April.

The Lakewood, Colo.-based grocery chain then will have 66 stores, most of them spread among Western states like Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Idaho.

The company opened a store in Billings this summer, its first in Montana.

“We’re excited to be growing our presence in Montana,” Natural Grocers Co-President Kemper Isely said in a company announcement for the Missoula opening.

The Natural Grocers in Helena is set to open Dec. 18 and the store in Kalispell is set to open April 23, according to the company’s website.

The Kalispell store is expected to open in the former Borders bookstore at Mountain View Plaza shopping center in north Kalispell, but the company could not be reached Monday to confirm that location.

A Denver-based firm, Vega Architecture, has applied for a building permit to remodel the former bookstore.

That permit — which is still awaiting approval by the city of Kalispell — identifies up to $452,000 in grocery-related improvements to the building, which has been empty since last fall when the national Borders chain went bankrupt.

In a statement earlier this month, Retail Properties of America announced a 20,000-square-foot lease with Natural Grocers at the Mountain View Plaza shopping center, which is a subsidiary of the real estate company. 

“The addition of Natural Grocers brings Mountain View Plaza to 100 percent occupancy which speaks to the high quality of this asset,” said John Reynolds, assistant vice president for Retail Properties of America. “Natural Grocers is an outstanding operator, and we are pleased to add a grocery component to Mountain View’s excellent line up of diverse retailers.”

NATURAL GROCERS by Vitamin Cottage was founded in 1955 by Margaret and Phillip Isely. They started the business selling whole grain bread and sharing nutrition information in Golden, Colo.

The publicly traded company today is an expanding retailer that specializes in natural and organic groceries and dietary supplements. 

The company aims to give customers a broad selection of organic and natural foods, dietary supplements and home and body care products. It avoids selling products that contain artificial ingredients and produce grown with synthetic pesticides, and each store has its own nutritional health coach to offer free nutritional coaching.

In its annual earnings filing, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage reported net sales of $334.4 million in fiscal year 2012, a 27 percent increase from the year before.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.