Healthy = Wealthy ?

As the baby boomers begin to age, what things do they find important to them? I imagine it's health above all. Well, to be fair, with the growing number of obesity cases, I imagine a lot of Americans could be concerned about their health as well. Companies began to cater to these healthier needs. McDonalds (MCD) added a few healthier items and better choiced salads to their menu (which helped their sales and margins in this past blowout 4th quarter), as did many other food establishments. So what can you do to buy into this health trend?

Well, some people equate healthiness to organic food. The two most obvious suggestions are Whole Foods Market (WFMI) and United Natural Foods (UNFI). I've written about WFMI before, and I still think it's a great company.

United Natural Foods (UNFI) - is a wholesaler of organic and natural foods, which caters to such organic supermarkets as Wild Oats (OATS) and Whole Foods (WFMI). The most obvious question is, why buy the wholesaler but not the actual supermarkets? Well, supermarkets have historically really low margins, so their ability to produce profit could be strained by any number of outside factors. A wholesaler's survival, on the other hand, is based off of consumer demand. Since the demand for organic food is on the rise, the wholesaler should be reeping the benefits.

Groupe Danone (DA) - known to Americans as Dannon, the maker of yogurt and Evian. I'll just refer to it as Dannon, since the majority of my readers are Americans. Dannon is a major food conglomerate, which produces anything from dairy products to biscuits to bottled water to baby food. The reason I suggest Dannon is simply for their dairy unit, and more specifically, their yogurt unit. As Jim Cramer relayed, and I agreed with, yogurt consumption is on the rise. And as USA Today put it, we're in the middle of a yogurt-eating renaissance.

Here are a few statistics from Know It's Yogurt:

• Total yogurt sales in the U.S. in 2004 were $2.8 billion, a 7.7% increase from 2003.
• Sales of yogurt rose 87% from 1994 to 2004.
• Consumption of yogurt in the U.S. doubled in the 15 years between 1987 and 2002, and tripled in the 19 years between 1983 and 2002.

I should've seen the yogurt-eating renaissance coming from a mile away. I eat yogurt often (well, in the form of yogurt smoothies), and yet the thought to see who produced it completely evaded me. I always say to observe your surroundings to see if anything you're consuming is worthy of stock ownership. I think Dannon is one of those situations.
And! Dannon is a French company, allowing for international diversification, whilst playing the healthy trend. That's two birds with one stone. And if you enjoy dividends as much as I do, Dannon has a 1.3% dividend yield. It's not a huge yield, but it's good enough to earn a few extra bucks on the side. The third bird is down.

One last thought to remember, all the wealth in the world is worthless if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it later on. I hope Americans can continue on their health conscious trend, and I hope everyone (from investors to consumers) can enjoy the benefits in the long run.

I own and/or control shares of McDonalds, Whole Foods Market, United Natural Foods, and Dannon.