Yeovil-based Ceres Natural & Organic Foods recently celebrated its 35th anniversary with a special open day event.
The event was a great success says Ceres founder Peter Jenkins. “We asked our suppliers if they’d like to take part in a two-day event to celebrate our 35 years in business and the response huge – in fact we ran out of room in the end! We had 20 suppliers in-store doing sampling and tastings and offering products for goodie bags and hampers.
“It was a lovely, dynamic couple of days for both the suppliers and us. And the event attracted people from aged eight – like the little girl who’d never tried a tofu burger before – to an eighty-year old who’d literally never stepped into a health store before.”
Jenkins says he got into the trade almost accidentally. “One weekend I had travelled down to Somerset to visit my mother and decided to have a wander around the market place here – and I stumbled across a stall selling all sorts of weird food. I went back home thinking ‘I could be doing that’. And within a few weeks I’d got myself my own market stall. That then progressed to the shop, which we opened – as you know – 35 years ago.”
Jenkins says the trade was a very different place back then: “There was a very sharp distinction then between wholefoods and health foods – a different philosophy. We were very much in the wholefoods camp, selling lots of loose foods. But the picture is different now – supplements and non-food now make up 50% of our sales. But food is our heritage and we see the wholefoods philosophy as being core to what we do and we still pack our own-label food products on site here.”
“There was a very sharp distinction then between wholefoods and health foods – a different philosophy. We were very much in the wholefoods camp, selling lots of loose foods. But the picture is different now – supplements and non-food now make up 50% of our sales. But food is our heritage and we see the wholefoods philosophy as being core to what we do and we still pack our own-label food products on site here.”
Ceres has come through three recessions and seen big changes on the retail scene, including the arrival of the internet. Recognising an opportunity it launched its own website nearly 10 years – www.healthfoodsuk.co.uk – which has seen a couple of big overhauls since. But Jenkins adds: “The internet has never been a big part of what we do – we’re still very much a bricks and mortar business, a face-to-face retailer.”
Despite the challenges facing independents – “we’ve suffered quite a bit in this current recession” – Jenkins sees a bright future for the health food trade. But to unlock that, he says, health stores will need to reach out to younger consumers – “those that are growing up with parents who no longer know how to use base ingredients from scratch and rely almost exclusively on convenience or processed foods, or those maybe in their twenties or thirties who may know the basics of good nutrition but won’t make time for it within their hectic lifestyles.
“The effect of their poor nutrition may only become apparent to them later in life and so it’s hard to grab their attention when life is so fast and foolproof. But if we can find a way to engage their interest in health and nutrition, natural beauty, care for the environment, anti cruelty, GMOs and pesticides – whatever the latch – then this trade will have a future.
“Its because I’m passionate about this business that I encapsulated my hopes in our company motto: ‘To empower those we reach to attain and maintain exceptional Health & Wellbeing’.”
