HOLYOKE — The familiar scent of incense and essential oils will still greet customers the moment they step into Cornucopia Natural Wellness Market. That hasn’t changed.
But gone are the cozy aisles in the basement of Thornes Marketplace in Northampton. Cornucopia’s new home is a 3,000-square-foot storefront at 384 Dwight St. in Holyoke, where sunlight pours through towering factory windows onto whitewashed brick walls and teal accents.
After a weeklong soft opening, the independently owned market held a ribbon-cutting last weekend and is ready for customers. Owners Nate Clifford and his wife, Jade Jump, say the new space better suits their mission: making healthy food and sustainable products more accessible and affordable.
The move comes after Cornucopia spent four decades at Thornes. “We feel like we’ve gotten a new lease on life here,” Clifford said. “We’re just getting started.”
The new store blends progressive ideals about healthy, organic and sustainable living with the feel of an old-school neighborhood market, where customers are encouraged to linger, ask questions and shop at their own pace.
The former factory space, vacant for about five years, is roughly one-third larger than Cornucopia’s previous location. The added room means wider aisles that are easier to navigate for customers using wheelchairs and space for future additions, including a kitchen that will prepare fresh foods and highlight local produce.
For now, shelves are stocked with organic groceries, supplements, body care products, incense, crystals and locally made packaged goods.
In the back of the store, customers can scoop exactly as much tea, herbs, spices, nuts and other bulk foods as they need, cutting down on packaging and food waste. Clifford himself grabbed a handful of almonds as he was interviewed.
A family of four can expect to spend roughly $200 to $300 for a week’s worth of groceries, they said, and the store accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
The store also emphasizes reducing plastic waste whenever possible through reusable or minimal packaging and other sustainable methods. The store carries environmentally friendly household products, including compostable bamboo toothbrushes with castor oil bristles for about $3 each.
Clifford also recommends an alternative to traditional fabric softener.
“Fabric softener is bad for your clothes. Don’t use fabric softener — I’m just going to be straight up,” he said while holding a package of wool dryer balls. “This is the best fabric softener you can use.”
The reusable wool balls can be scented with essential oils and “last forever,” he said.
Cornucopia also partners with Cadia, a grocery brand known for natural and organic products, allowing the store to offer healthier alternatives at competitive prices.
Leaving downtown Northampton was a difficult but necessary decision, Clifford said.
“We were in a bit of a saturated market for this kind of stuff, and we wanted to be in a place that was a little more our speed,” he said.
The owners hope the move helps expand access to healthier food in Holyoke, which the state has identified as having limited access to fresh, nutritious groceries. It is also centrally located to welcome back faithful customers from neighboring communities, including Northampton.
The store is also surrounded by hundreds of nearby apartments, many of them recently redeveloped.
Jump said her passion for healthy living began around age 20 when she became a vegetarian.
“When I really started paying more attention to what I was putting in my body and on my body, it made a huge difference in how I felt,” she said. “Since having children, that is something that we focus on a lot.”
The couple said that people often end up buying processed foods because they think it is more affordable. However, he said these foods are slowly killing people.
“You go in there [traditional grocery stores] and see carts of processed food, carts full of soda and things like that,” Clifford said. “People feel like they can afford it, and they’re still alive, but they’re literally getting sicker and sicker eating that food.”
While Cornucopia is not entirely organic, the owners say they strive to carry products made with simpler ingredients and fewer additives.
The relocation was made possible in part through financing assistance from the Massachusetts Food Trust Program, which helped the business secure a loan. The renovation transformed the long-vacant space with about $500,000 worth of improvements completed for roughly half that cost, Clifford said.
“We’re really proud of ourselves,” he said. “We’ve put everything into this — financially, physically, emotionally, mentally. Everything has gone into this.”
The couple has already begun building relationships with neighboring businesses in the plaza and says the response from longtime customers has been overwhelming.
“I wanted to cry,” Clifford said of the support the store received after announcing the move. “We’re really lucky that we have so much engagement and so many people who want to see us succeed.”
Now, they hope to build the broader “Cornucopia community” in Holyoke by listening closely to customers.
“We really do want to hear what people like and dislike, and more importantly, what they want to see on our shelves,” Clifford said. “We want to make sure what we carry is what the community wants to see. That’s what makes the store work, and that’s what makes people feel like they have a home here.”
