Say you want to pick up a ripe apple or a head of fresh lettuce. Typically, that means a trip to the grocery store, or maybe a farmer’s market. But in some Maine towns, there’s another place to find produce now: convenience stores.
A new initiative is helping rural stores that often serve as de facto supermarkets offer healthier choices.
Drive east from Bangor toward Calais, and you’ll pass through the small town of Amherst, home to about 300 residents.
“It’s probably 25 miles to the nearest grocery store, so the people there don’t have access to a full-service grocery store that has healthy produce,” says Sandie Dubay of the community health organization Healthy Acadia.
What they do have is the Amherst General Store, perched on a hill on Route 9. It’s a classic, old Maine general store that sells everything from candy to crawlers.
“Despite the fact this is a very small community with a small population, there is a lot of traffic coming through that stop in to buy quick items,” Dubay says.
She has been working with the store for the past two years to try to expand the selection even more. And recently, some new items have become prominently displayed near the front door: wicker baskets containing apples, oranges and peppers. Next to them, wooden shelves are stocked with bags of Maine potatoes, onions and garlic. It’s like a mini-oasis of healthy food.
“A convenience store is full of junk food, so you really got to try to balance it out,” says Ralph Jordan, who has owned the Amherst General Store for more than two decades.
Jorda has tried to offer fresh produce in the past, but says selling it before it turned limp or wrinkled was easier said than done.
“Customers don’t go into the convenience store expecting it. They’re programmed to go in and buy their sodas and less healthy choices,” he says.
But Dubay says that can change. Healthy Acadia’s work is the outgrowth of a movement that started more than a decade ago in Philadelphia to offer more healthy items at convenience stores.
Working in Down East Maine, Healthy Acadia identified a half-dozen stores in areas with high rates of chronic disease and low access to major grocery centers. The nonprofit worked with each store to determine what healthy foods their customers want, then provided guidance and marketing materials, like signs and displays, to entice sales.
“These stores have made significant changes by adding the fresh fruit and vegetable displays,” Dubay says. “Putting the fresh fruit right beside the cash register so customers will kind of do it as an impulse buy. Adding 100 percent whole wheat bread. Placing water in a more prominent level, like eye level as people walk in.”
Also adding healthier grab-and-go items like soups and salads. Those have been particularly popular at the Amherst General Store, especially with workers who were in town for a long-term windmill project. But the project is now over, the workers are gone and so are the summer tourists.
Ralph Jordan says he’d like to expand if he can sustain sales.
“As long as people buy it, you’re willing to do anything, really,” he says.
About 30 miles away, the Tideway Market in Hancock has also added produce to its offerings. But during a recent weekday lunch hour, most customers bypass the bananas displayed next to the cash register and go for the pizza.
“We sell a lot of pizza,” says cashier Tracy Weed.
Weed says some customers are starting to change their habits.
“You get your regulars who come in and buy candy or something a lot, and all of a sudden they come to the counter and they have a banana or apple or orange. It’s a pleasant change to see,” she says.
Tideway is only a few miles from a major shopping center, but it’s just far enough out of town to be more convenient for customers like Rachel Smallidge. She stops in to buy a hot dog for her daughter, but says she appreciates having healthier options available at Tideway.
“With me, a lot of times I don’t have the time or the energy to park in a big parking lot and walk all the way in to the grocery store just to get a little snack,” she says.
The healthy items have also helped Tideway reclaim reluctant customers like Maeve Perry.
“Convenience stores — I actually swore them off at one point, because they didn’t have any healthy options at all,” she says.
Perry came to satisfy a craving for Greek yogurt.
“I think it’s very pricey, but I like that it’s prominently displayed, and it’s eye-catching, and it’s right there at front of store,” she says.
Not only is it a challenge to change the food culture at convenience stores, Tideway owner Scott Madrell says it’s also tough to offer healthy food at competitive prices.
“Bananas, haven’t had good luck with the bananas from our providers, so I do go and get those from Walmart, actually, once or twice a week, same with oranges. Paying retail at Walmart is cheaper than I can get it from our wholesale providers,” he says.
Customers aren’t knocking down the doors yet for this kind of food, but Madrell says it is the wave of the future.
