Loyal customers and a continued vow of product quality has kept business as usual for smaller businesses, even as large food stores heighten competition by selling organic produce.
“Our products are fresh, grown locally and are great tasting,” said Ghassan Neshawat, owner of the Jasmine Farms cooperative in Glenwood.
“That?s why people shop here.”
But the rising number of supermarket stores carrying organic foods has made it more difficult for smaller cooperatives to keep up the pace.
Many of them have expanded their stores to appease the demands of the public and the growth of the natural food industry.
“The organic industry is bursting out of the seams,” said Ellen Joy, supplement manager at Roots Market in Clarksville, an 11,000-square-foot all-natural food store.
Joy said larger companies, such as Whole Foods and Wal-Mart that now carry organic foods, are major sources of competition and sell the food for much cheaper prices.
“We buy local produce when we can, we stay as organic as possible and buy as clean as we can [without pesticides],” Joy said. “We also have many more people here to help customers than most large natural grocers.”
For Jasmine Farms, expansion was the only option. It opened in 1999 as a roadside stand that sold wholesale produce to small stores, Neshawat said
When that failed, it turned into a farmers? market, and eventually a co-op.
“It was the only way we could stay in business,” Neshawat said.
He said 90 percent of what is grown on the farm is sent to the co-op, and the remaining 10 percent is sent to a farmers? market in Gaithersburg to create an even bigger profit.
The Common Market cooperative in Frederick is opening a new store July 29 to allow for expansion and additional products.
The idea behind this expansion is not only to promote healthier eating by buying organic food, but to encourage people to support local farms in Frederick County.
