By all accounts, the opening week of the new Earth Fare store in Huntersville has been true to form. That means overflow parking, elbow-to-elbow shoppers and thousands of curiosities satisfied.

Shoppers leave with bags — always paper, never plastic — filled with unique specialty products, home-grown organic produce, fresh-pressed nut butters, a wide selection of gluten-free foods, specialty brand commercial products, choice meats cut fresh by on-site butchers and more.

Earth Fare, which opened on Thursday, Aug. 3, off Reese Boulevard in The Park-Huntersville, is 130,000-plus square feet of supermarket that has more of a neighborhood market feel, featuring highly trained staff members who appear to love going to work and enjoy their interaction with customers. And that’s just the way Jack Murphy, CEO of the Asheville-based chain of 23 stores in seven states, wants it to be. He says Earth Fare positions itself as a member of the community rather than a merely a merchant, and among its missions is to imbed itself locally well before a new store opens.

“Everywhere we go, we provide almost 100 quality, local jobs with good benefits,” says Murphy. “And that’s what we need to do. The only way we are going to be able to fix our economy is to create jobs. The people we have here love being here, and I think it shows in our service. We take care of our people, and we get rewarded in how they take care of our customers.”

Earth Fare calls itself “The Healthy Supermarket” for a number of reasons. Its “food philosophy” is that it offers only products with no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils; no high-fructose corn syrup; no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners or preservatives; no antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones or animal by-products in feeds for fresh meats and milk; no bleached or bromated flour; no animal by-products in pet foods; and no products created through inhumane treatment of animals.

The company identifies locally provided products as those that come from within a 100-mile radius of the store.

All this and more drew overflow crowds to the store’s grand opening last week, continuing through the weekend. It was a community response that store manager Chris Hinson, who previously served as the store manager of the Rock Hill, S.C., location, had not seen before. “People are so excited we are here,” says Hinson. “I have never seen a community so excited

about a store opening. They (store openings) all have been very busy, but I have never seen a community embrace a store like this one.”

The store opened fairly quietly and without a lot of fanfare, but the crowds came anyway. Hinson credits that, in part, to the company’s strategy of becoming involved in each local community months before the store actually opens.

“We make ourselves known at every event and every festival in the area,” says Hinson. “We are good at getting out into the community and we focus on that strategy. A lot of our customers here were already driving down to SouthPark and to Ballantyne (Earth Fare’s two other Charlotte-area locations), so they were excited we were going to be here and they were ready for it.”

Earth Fare began as Dinner for the Earth in Asheville in 1974, changing its name to Earth Fare in 1993, at the same time banning products with hydrogenated oils from its shelves. It wasn’t until 1974 that the company opened its second store in Charleston, S.C, and it hasn’t looked back. It opened its Charlotte stores in 2005 and 2007, adding Rock Hill in 2008. Huntersville is the 23rd store in the chain, with more scheduled to open this year.

Among Earth Fare’s food philosophies is that it sells “foods as close to the ground as it gets.” Some of the highlights include:

• One of the largest selections of local and organic produce on the East Coast.

• More than 250 varieties of artisan and farmstead cheeses from the United States, Europe and Australia.

• A beer and wine selection that includes organic wines and gluten-free organic beers.

• More than 200 varieties in bulk, including organic grains, cereals, candies, snacks, nuts and nut butters.

• Hot bar, salad bar, sandwich station, pizza station and prepared foods counter that complies to the store’s ban on hydrogenated oils, hormones, antibiotics, high-fructose corn syrup and more.

If customers can’t find a specialty item on the shelves, Hinson says, in many cases, all they have to do is ask.

“We focus on gluten-free products and we have a lot of customers who have food allergies, so we try to educate ourselves on what we can do to help these clients because often they have nowhere else they can go,” Hinson says. “One thing about Earth Fare is, if you don’t see it, ask about it. We special order for people all the time as long as it meets our food philosoph 
standards and as long as we can get it from our suppliers.”

Earth Fare CEO Murphy says Huntersville and the Lake Norman area fit the model for the company’s continued growth. The area’s demographics and commitment to healthy living were key to locating a store here, as well as the burgeoning medical community that is The Park Huntersville. Anchored by the expanding Presbyterian Hospital, the portion of The Park that
faces Gilead Road is a continuously growing medical campus.

Just across the parking lot from Earth Fare, for example, is a new medical building currently under construction.

“There is a real commitment to healthy living here, and that’s what Earth Fare is all about,” says Murphy.