NORTHAMPTON — The phone has been ringing constantly at Cornucopia Wellness Market in the last few days, with loyal longtime customers asking about the situation at the health food store that’s become an institution in Thornes Marketplace and in the city.

Nate Clifford, who co-owns the store with his wife Jade Jump, gets to the heart of the matter — after more than 40 years, the store will be moving locations. He’s not sure exactly where yet, but it won’t be in Northampton.

“We’re going to miss being here for Christmas. We’re going to miss being here among the tenants that we’re friends with,” Clifford said. “But we just needed to make a call before we didn’t have the chance to make a call.”

Clifford said that over the last two years, he and Jump came to a realization that the store would not be able to keep up with costs and manage to financially survive in their current location, located at the bottom floor of Thornes. Clifford and Jump have owned the store for six years, and in that time have survived the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to federal relief grants. But the end of those grants, combined with a change in shopping habits to online, contributed to the decision to move.

“I understand these things always shift around. We’re not victims of anything,” Clifford said. “We just have to be realistic about what this business is and what it isn’t.”

The store will continue to be in Thornes until June 30, when it moves out. The couple hasn’t determined an exact location for where Cornucopia will move to, but have explored several places in Holyoke, making the city the store’s likely next home.

“Holyoke is wanting a real grocery store downtown to provide for that community in a way hat has never been there before,” Clifford said. “[The city] is 17 minutes from here, we feel we can serve a lot of our community that we already serve. And for the people who walk on foot, we will as we always have do deliveries.”

Originally founded by Bud Stockwell and Sydney Flu, the store was sold to Clifford and Jump in 2019. They’ve continued to keep on the store’s reputation as an independent health food store, selling nothing with artificial flavors, pesticides or genetically modified organisms.

“We take a lot of pride in our sourcing of what we put on our shelves,” Jump said. “We don’t have a lot of space, so it’s important to us that we put the best of what we can find.”

For many of the store’s longtime customers, the announcement of the move is bittersweet.

“I’ve been shopping here since I was a student at Smith, and that was 30 years ago,” said Nicole Spezeski of Florence as she perused one of the store’s aisles. “Am I going to miss it as a Northampton landmark? Yes. Do I understand why they felt the need to move? Also yes.”

Clifford also emphasized that although Cornucopia felt the need to move, they were grateful to Thornes for their support over the years, maintaining they continued to have a good relationship with the shopping center’s owners.

“They do care about their tenants, and they have done a lot to try and keep us here,” he said. “We don’t have some contentious relationship with them. They are longtime friends, and we are just looking to survive as a business and do what we do.”

Jody Doele, marketing manager for Thornes, shared similar sentiment on the news of Cornucopia’s departure from the city.

“We’re grateful for the time we’ve shared with them,” Doele said. “We’re sad this is ending, but this is a new chapter for them, and that gives us some comfort.”

The store will be running a 10% discount on all items until the June 30 move, with signs with QR codes to allow customers to donate to provide support.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.