Health food stores became much more common in the 1960s in connection to the newly emerging ecology movement and counterculture.
Many health food stores are worker owned cooperatives and consumer cooperatives due in part to the ability of cooperative buying power to bring lower costs to the consumer and their growth of popularity during the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Over the last decade, health food, and especially organic food, has entered the mainstream. Companies such as Whole Foods Market, a large multinational corporation, have profited greatly and grown substantially during this expansion.
