Earth Natural Foods supermarket in London

At the end of last year, three entrepreneurs opened a wholefood supermarket in north London. Having operated the wholefood store Bumblebee, less than five minutes walk away from the new store, all of them have had quite a few years of experience. Bumblebee, launched in 1980, was one of the first wholefood stores in London.

Picture: Bumblebee - the forerunner of the new "Earth" supermarket

“We simply wanted a large, well laid-out, modern store,” says Yanni Perivolas, explaining the decision leading to the launch of the 270 m² store in the busy Kentish Town Road. The old store that consisted of four small shops next door and opposite each other has been sold. The date of the launch of “Earth Natural Foods” supermarket (www.earthnaturalfoods.co.uk) was 17th November 2006. Since it is on a corner site, the supermarket has a large expanse of windows and with its entrance positioned across the corner (picture below), it attracts more attention than the usual kind of location. The store is operated by Mr Perivolas, Gillian Haslop (picture) and John Grayson.

The rectangular store, measuring around 14 m x 20 m, is organised in a pratical way and is fitted out with metal shelving. Opposite the windows at the front, a second level (2 m high) has been built in for the storage of goods. At the back of the store, there is another storage area of about 50 m² and a small office. In front of this storage area is a counter for cheese, takeaways, juices and hot drinks.

The comprehensive product range consists of 5000 articles and can satisfy consumers’ every wish. The proportion of organics in the total range of goods is about 75 % but in the case of fruit and vegetables it is 100 %. Customers with large households can buy multi-packs, such as honey in a 3 kg pack (see picture). Specialities like goat milk in 1 l cartons are also on sale.

On average, 400 customers shop here every day, a figure Yannis Perivolas is pleased with. He is also pleased with the store’s location “We are positioned here in one of the very busy main shopping streets in Kentish Town where people have no difficulty in finding us.” The store is open six days a week from 8:30 to 19:00. It is closed on Sundays.

The supermarket is supplied by 50-60 companies, the chief suppliers being the importer and specialist in dried fruit and nuts Community Foods, and the wholesaler Infinity. Mr Perivolas says that companies like Rapunzel that is well known in Britain, also supply his store. For example, Rapunzel sends two pallets of goods every two months. Unfortunately these goods are not labelled in English and they have to be given new label. These labels are not supplied by Rapunzel and therefore the store has the time-consuming task of producing them.

Other German suppliers like Bauck, or those supplying Britain via the importer Biona, provide goods labelled in English as a matter of course.

Including the owners, 15 full-time staff and five part-timers work in the store.

21.06.2007