I was dealt a harsh blow recently when it was announced that the healthy grocery store chain Earth Fare will be going out of business. Not just my local store, but all of them. While I am of course disappointed about the simple loss of my favorite place to shop for food, I’m also sorry to see the disappearance of an organization that sought to do such positive things in its area of influence.
Earth Fare started its existence in 1975 as Dinner for the Earth, a little health food store in Asheville, North Carolina. Founder Roger Derrough came home from a trip out West with the idea that Asheville needed a store with healthy food – healthy for the people eating it, and healthy for the planet producing it. It turned out that his idea was a good one. As the store grew and developed a “Food Philosophy” of providing only safe, wholesome food to its customers, it grew to fill larger buildings, and then expanded to include more stores in the region, eventually stretching its reach across the South.
Earth Fare’s tagline is “Healthy Food for Everyone,” and they have done their best to make this not just a slogan, but a reality. Earth Fare offered grocery items at prices competitive with other stores, rather than commanding a large mark-up based on its “healthy” label. It even offered daily meal specials on its pre-made foods, so that busy people could provide healthy meals for themselves and their families without breaking the bank. One of the regular specials included up to five free children’s meals from the hot bar with the purchase of one adult meal – surely a boon to large families on a tight budget. Earth Fare was started as a way to make healthy food accessible to everyone, and it has upheld these values throughout its time.
So what happened? How did a beloved grocery chain of seemingly busy stores go under? “It was a total shock,” Derrough said of the chain’s closure. “I think that, ultimately, it was bad management, bad decisions, that there’s no reason this company should be shuttering.” He cited Earth Fare’s swift expansion after he sold it as a likely problem, the chain running in fifty locations as opposed to the two or three he had expected, opening stores that “weren’t as busy” as bustling Asheville locations. Comments from current employees on the Earth Fare Facebook group support Derrough’s comments, pointing to mismanagement in the form of unpaid bills and lack of notice of pending unemployment, only finding out about the chain’s closing when the story broke on local news, marring the chain’s positive legacy with an ending embroiled in lawsuits and bankruptcy.
“I worked for Earth Fare for years,” one commenter claimed. “I still know many people who stayed there. This company has been sold and resold many times. Each new set of owners raped, pillaged and plundered – taking it to the bare bones and never growing it for the long term. Employees have been expected to perform miracles with a skeleton staff and no power. There is a special place in hell for those who destroy so many people’s lives due to entitled greed. Each new ‘improvement’ weakened the company. It’s such a shame, especially since so it could have been prevented.”
However, the happy memories seem to outweigh the sad ending for most involved in Earth Fare’s story. Closing announcements on social media were flooded with comments expressing appreciation of the stores and their products, as well as the family-like feeling of established stores with long-term employees. “When we were in Boone, NC for a couple of years EarthFare was our go to store – so many health options, good quality organic food, great produce. Thank you for making those years easier and healthier!” one customer wrote. “This is such sad news. I feel bad for the employees losing their jobs and for the little store that was a great part of our community. I’m going to miss their bread department that made awesome sourdough, I’ll miss the reverse osmosis water spouts, and so much more,” another added.
For me, this is the end of big bulk bins of grains, nuts, and legumes. It’s the end of the only peanut butter I even like anymore, dry roasted peanuts ground into a spread at the touch of a button. It’s the end of the best Parmesan I’ve been able to find in the US, priced considerably less than the significantly inferior product available at Whole Foods, and the mozzarella capable of making pizza taste Italian. It’s the end of aisles and aisles of cruelty-free clean beauty products, incense, and essential oils. It’s the end of my favorite hot salsa.
I made my last trip to Earth Fare on the Friday after the closure announcement. In order to clear out store shelves, everything was on sale. Though the sale had only been going on for a few days, shelves were already emptying. The cheese counter and bulk dry goods were already almost gone. Little old ladies bustled among the dry goods, filling bags of rice and legumes and grains and adding them to heaping shopping carts. The pizza counter was shut down, the surfaces clean and the ovens cold. Though the store was packed with customers getting their last load of groceries, the mood was a bit subdued, the sparsely filled shelves making it clear that this was the end.
The ending of something is definite and melancholy, even when it is a store, or a series of stores. It is also someone’s dream, many people’s jobs and careers, even more than people’s source for something – it is so much bigger than just a store.
Want to know more?
For more information about Roger Derrough and his vision:
“Tempeh Fugit” – Mountain Xpress
On Earth Fare’s closing:
“Earth Fare Founder Shocked by Grocery Chain’s Closure” – News13 WLOC
All quotations from customers and employees come from Earth Fare’s Facebook page.
