health food groceries? (Johnson City, Kingsport, Franklin: organic, restaurants, shopping center)

[johnnybc]

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but is there an organic grocerie store in Johnson City?? A Whole Foods or similar or hopefully better, less corporate, more local produce, etc but with free range meat!!--thanks

[jabogitlu]

There's a Natural Foods Market, which is pretty small but locally owned for like 20 years. They have a lot of HBA product, bulk product, cheese. Their staff is crazy friendly and very helpful.

Then there's Earth Fare, which is a regionally-based (Asheville) minichain of organic groceries. They have some of the most strict definitions of natural and organic in the industry (I trained for a position there, but ultimately didn't take it). They partner with as many 'local' (usually ends up being Western NC, but hey, that's better than Missouri or Guatemala!) farmers as possible in general - though I do believe their beef (which is excellent, btw) comes from somewhere in the Rockies? Don't quote me on that.

But yes, their poultry is free range, their eggs are from fr chickens. They have an intense selection of fine cheese, lots of bulk product, and weird stuff that is way too die-hard for me like organic cat food. They also have a great deli and foodprep section with a nice lunch buffet, but at $7.-- a pound it's expensiveish.

[mbmouse]

Hey, Jab, where is that Natural Foods market you are talking about? Can't recall it and sounds like some place I would like to check out. Thanks!

[jabogitlu]

It's at the edge of the shopping center on Peoples St. in North, just a couple stores down from Old Navy.

[sclavus]

We'll be moving to the area in about two weeks, and I've been doing some research on this myself. Here's what I've found so far for the entire Tri-Cities area:

Bristol Health Food Store
1600 Edgemont Ave, Bristol, TN 37620-4306
(423) 968-1241

Earth Fare
1735 W. State of Franklin Rd, Johnson City, TN 37604
(423) 232-1011
http://www.earthfare.com

Good Food Grocery
1425 E Center St, Kingsport, TN 37664-2501
(423) 246-3663

Natural Foods Market
3211 Peoples Street, Suite 74, Johnson City, TN 37604
(423) 610-1200
http://www.nfmonline.com

The Health Barn
3116 E Oakland Ave, Johnson City, TN 37601-1529
(423) 283-4719
http://www.localfuss.com/Healthbarn.html

The Health Barn
829 Tusculum Blvd, Greeneville, TN 37745-4001
(423) 639-1381

As for meats, I've found two Organic meat producers in all of Tennessee:

Peaceful Pastures All Natural Meats
Darrin and Jenny Drake
69 Cowan Valley Lane, Hickman, TN 38567
(615) 683-5556
Peacepast@aol.com
http://www.peacefulpastures.com

West Wind Farm
155 Shekinah Way, Deer Lodge TN 37726
(423) 965-3334
http://www.grassorganic.com

You may also be interested in the Local Harvest web site, it will show you local farms, CSA programs, markets, and restaurants that support local ag, many are organic or natural grown. Just click on the map on the main page to zoom in to your area.

http://www.localharvest.org

Lastly, I'm not affiliated with any of these companies, just don't like to eat poisonous frankenfoods. I can't vouch for the accuracy of any of this information, the quality of their products or services, as this is just stuff I've been collecting from web searches. Hope you find it useful.