history-of-greenlife

The History Of Greenlife

The Greenlife Story .. told by JAMIE SERMON

Greenlife opened in July 1990 at 55 Fore Street, Totnes, a tiny 200 ft² shop (now owned by the Jewellers, Stoned of Totnes). Initially it was a would-be Body Shop with a small section of wholefoods and supplements. The main thrust was to encourage more 'green' shopping: recycled, fair trade items, organic clothes, and so forth. After all, there were already two busy health food shops in Totnes and every other grocer in town, seeing the local trend, had already put in a shelf or two of rice cakes and soya milk.

However by September 1990 the country had plunged, seemingly overnight, into recession. As if that was not enough, in the same month, a disastrous fire of the East Gate Arch left the street covered in rubble. As the area outside our entrance remained virtually closed for the next few months, the fate of our fledgling shop seemed sealed. By January 1991 our partner, Martin, was ready to throw in the towel. "It’s never going to work", he predicted gloomily, "We’ll have to try and sell up."

Greenlife had already begun life twelve years earlier, in leafy 1978 Surrey. Mike, my husband, decided to start a wholefoods co-operative in the basement of our old Victorian house, and although it didn’t last even a year, it gave him a taste for 'the business'. Eight years later, in 1986, we found ourselves co-owners of a complementary therapy training centre in Devon. Mike converted a large walk-in larder into his premises. As more and more people attended courses, so the product range increased. Every day found Mike bagging up lentils and dried fruit whilst chatting to visiting customers about the virtues of various stock. What he managed to squeeze into (what must have been) the smallest shop in England! Everyone commented on it, particularly on its wonderful smell!

So here we were at the dawn of 1991, a very bleak January. Who was going to buy an unsuccessful 'green' shop, with a lease that had become worthless overnight? We had no choice but to soldier on. Weeks went by when we could barely cover costs; we worked for a pittance and had to supplement our income in other ways. Each time our partner came into the shop, his face grew greyer as he feared inevitable ruin.
We realised that many of our products were not at the top of people’s shopping lists. If we were to survive we had to do some serious pruning and rethinking. One thing was for sure, even in hard times people still had to eat. That meant we would now be competing more than ever with other health food shops, and we had to decide what to concentrate on to make it work:

1) Creating a good atmosphere by remaining as buoyant as possible
2) Making our window as inviting and eye catching as possible
3) Making customers feel welcome by being cheerful and helpful
4) Spending time with and really listening to customers
5) Attempting to meet everyone’s needs no matter how difficult it might be to locate unusual products
6) Learning as much as possible about our products, especially the supplements and remedies
7) Tasting and using all our products ourselves
8) Providing first class goods and services

Mike particularly excelled in making people feel special. Against all sound business advice and practice, he gave discounts to friends, old and very new, as well as free lollies to their children. Having so little space in our tiny premises, every nook and cranny was packed and customers enjoyed the sense of it being an Aladdin’s cave. Again, everyone commented on the wonderful smell. We never quite knew what the source of this was: fresh bread, herbal teas samples, incense and/or scented candles? If nothing else, were able to create an attractive atmosphere for people.

Turnover climbed slowly and surely, and by 1993, we were wondering what the next step was? For months I had been eyeing what seemed a gigantic empty double-fronted shop space at the bottom of Fore Street so I decided to take the bull by the horns and arranged a viewing. At 1750 ft² including an office, kitchen and toilet, it seemed an impossible dream. Yet somehow Mike and I believed it could happen. We discussed terms and for once the recession was in our favour. Martin did his sums and announced if we could double our present turnover within a six month period, it might work.
After four intensive months of preparation, we moved into our new premises on St. Valentine’s Day 1994. To our amazement and delight, customers actually began to drift in. Almost without exception, the comments were favourable, even ecstatic. Never had they seen such an interesting health food store! What a treat to have space to bring in a pram, space to browse and pass the time of day with friends. What a wonderful smell! By the end of our first day we realised we would be all right. It was going to work. Luckily, within just a month’s time, we had doubled our turnover.

Things just kept growing and growing and as an attempt to increase the selling space of the shop, we took the bold step in late 1999, and bought a unit on the Industrial Estate to receive and house our deliveries and provide much-needed extra office space for the shop and our growing mail order business, Greenlife Direct. As we had simultaneously changed over to an EPOS system, we were also faced with some interesting teething troubles to overcome! Over the course of the next two years, we had new flooring laid and new shelving installed where necessary which finally made it possible to open up the remaining area of the shop. We took advantage of this to take on organic fruit and vegetables, a challenging move but one which has proved to be very popular whilst providing a wonderfully fresh and colourful addition. Getting round at last to applying for a license, we also created an impressive range of organic wines, cider and beer.

We now have over 5000 lines, with a mix of approximately 75% food to 25% supplements, remedies, personal and domestic care items. Over the last few years, we have concentrated on building the organic side of the business, having a policy now of taking on only organic food lines, unless they have some other health benefit (e.g. gluten-free, etc). We specialise in teas with an assortment of around 250 varieties. There is a large bakery section with local breads delivered daily, plus others from a further four bakeries around the country. Alongside the usual selection of rice cakes, soya milk, etc. to be found in every health food store, we also carry Japanese and Indian products, plus a broad selection of Indian style pasta and sauces. We deal with over 20 local suppliers who provide us with everything from lunchtime snacks such as boxed meals, sandwiches, pasties, sushi rolls, quiches, pies, crisps, flapjacks and juices, plus eggs, milk, tofu, burgers and many other goodies. Our three freezers and six fridges (not to mention the overflow freezer and fridge in the back kitchen and also the three fridges at the warehouse) are full to bursting with the ever-increasing availability of chilled and frozen products.
We carry a very broad range of vitamins, minerals and other supplements, homeopathic and herbal remedies and aromatherapy products as well as an extensive variety of flower remedies. We always have a display of special offers and new products.
We have approximately thirty staff, which is mixed between full and part timers, and a nicer, more committed group you couldn’t find anywhere. We have two very astute stock controllers who are responsible for the EPOS system, organising special offers and taking on new products. Various staff are responsible for different areas of the shop, including fruit and vegetables, bakery and chilled items. Everybody spends a lot of time manning the four tills and restocking the shelves from the endless crates delivered by the warehouse staff. Upstairs at the warehouse is Greenlife Direct and also the Administration department.

We have numerous trained staff in the shop who can answer most questions with the help provided by the Healthnotes Online programme. Greenlife attracts customers from far and wide who benefit from the extensive information and knowledge we are able to give.
We owe much of our success to the fact that Totnes is such an unusual town, having a large population of therapists from every imaginable discipline, as well as parents and teachers from the local Steiner school plus students from Dartington College of Arts, who together comprise many of our customers. They tend to be very discerning and well informed on health matters, happy to spend money for the privilege of eating organic fruit and vegetables. We also have many old aged pensioners for whom we have a weekly discount day, as well as plenty of other customers from all walks of life. In fact, our customer base is very wide and even includes a few local celebrities. On a typical day we see 500 customers go through the shop. Customers come from a wide radius as they tell us they are often unable to find what they need in their local area. Some come to us having been told "If anyone has it, Greenlife will!" Many of them implore us to open up a shop nearer their home town. We have been told by many holiday visitors as well that they have never seen such a large health shop carrying such a wide range of products. Many customers also comment on what they perceive to be a really good atmosphere.

We are totally committed to recycling wherever possible - all our paper and cardboard is sent away to be recycled; customers deliver enormous amounts of used plastic bags which are offered as a free alternative to our new 5p bags - we donate a percentage of this bag money to local charities. We also recycle our glass to the bottle bank and all plastic containers and cartons to a local centre.
Wherever possible we have made donations to local charities and also we collect charitable donations from our advertising wall space area. We have also sponsored a local boys’ football team and have donated products for raffles to support worthy causes.
We often ask ourselves how we got here - it was almost accidental. Ultimately, I think Greenlife has been successful in part because of our naïve belief that it was possible, and by not allowing ourselves to be influenced by the industry’s 'doom and gloom' stories, and by building strong bridges of friendship and loyalty with both our broad spectrum of customers and our team of brilliant and supportive staff. In the end, it’s been down to belief, commitment, perseverance, and service.