A growing Mainland chain retailing vitamins and nutritional supplements, Vitamin Shoppe, plans to open a half-dozen Hawai'i stores over the next two years, increasing local consumer choices and business competition for health products.

The New Jersey-based company expects to open its first Hawai'i store next month at Pearlridge Center, followed by stores in Ala Moana Center, Kane'ohe and Lahaina, Maui, later next year. In 2009, Vitamin Shoppe stores are slated for Kapolei and Kailua, Kona.

"That's our entry," said Tom Tolworthy, Vitamin Shoppe CEO, explaining that the company will measure customer response after the stores open and could proceed with more Hawai'i stores later.

The retailer's impending Hawai'i expansion comes amid an influx of new retailers to Hawai'i such as Walgreens and Whole Foods Market selling health-related consumer products.

Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain, earlier this month opened the first store of what could be as many as 25 to 30 stores in Hawai'i. Walgreens' entry to the local market promises to generate heavy competition in the state's broader health product industry largely dominated by Longs Drug Stores.

Whole Foods is primarily a natural and organic foods supermarket, but also sells vitamins and nutritional supplements. Its first of four planned Hawai'i stores is scheduled to open next spring at Kahala Mall.

Vitamin Shoppe carries a broad inventory of vitamins, herbs, sports nutrition supplements, diet products and other nonprescription health and beauty aids — a category dominated by industry leader GNC, which has about 4,800 retail locations worldwide, including about 20 in Hawai'i.

Hawai'i was a particularly attractive market for Vitamin Shoppe because, Tolworthy said, the state is the No. 1 per-capita consumer of dietary supplements. "The potential for our industry there is very strong," he said. "We're really excited."

Vitamin Shoppe's move into Hawai'i also is part of an aggressive national expansion plan for the company, which aims to capitalize on rising health consciousness of an aging population.

Founded in 1977 as a single store in New York, Vitamin Shoppe today is a chain of about 340 stores in 31 states, an Internet retail site and a monthly mail-order catalog.

Most of Vitamin Shoppe's growth occurred in the past decade, after the 1997 sale of a majority stake in the business to investment firms that funded an expansion from 18 stores that year to about 100 over five years.

In 2002, a unit of Bear Stearns Merchant Banking, with other investors, acquired the company and accelerated growth by opening more than 200 additional stores.

Earlier this year, Vitamin Shoppe registered to sell stock to the public in an offering geared to help fuel further expansion that company leaders envision can lead to more than 900 U.S. stores.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.