The debut of Sprouts Farmers Market as a public traded company created a great deal of interest in publicly traded natural and specialty food companies in 20132013 Stock Performance.  And while the Sprouts stock (SFM) jumped more than 100% on its first day, that’s mostly because it was priced artificially low and then was probably overvalued (its current P/E ratio is an astronomical 143): overall, the Sprouts stock fell 4.19% for the year.  During that same time period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 6.07%, Whole Foods (WFM) rose 5.05%, Natural Grocers (NGVC) rose 18.25%, and UNFI rose 26.32%.

Overall, it was a decent year for natural and specialty foods stocks, with Whole Foods (+26.79%), Natural Grocers (+112.46%), UNFI (+37.40%) and Hain (+60.73%) all outperforming the Dow.

See  chart: 2013 Stock Performance