A healthy business, naturally

William Hamilton

07/26/2009

ORGANIC GROWTH: Ruth Hardman, left, Christine Mulhall, center, and Susan Kinnel have operated The Good Seed in Seekonk since 1989. Kinnel and Hardman are sisters and have been friends with Mulhall since high school. /

Sue Kinnel admits she was more than a little nervous when Whole Foods arrived in Providence several years ago.
At the time, Kinnel and her partners, Ruth Hardman and Christine Mulhall, had been successfully operating The Good Seed, a small natural foods store in Seekonk a short distance from the Rhode Island border, and they were concerned about the competition.
They needn’t have worried.
The Whole Foods markets on the East Side were far enough away that The Good Seed was still a convenience for their regular customers, and the organics grocery giant actually raised awareness of the natural foods segment, which fed The Good Seed’s sales and still does.
“The bigger they get, the bigger we get,” says Mulhall.
That might explain why the owners of The Good Seed, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, are talking about expanding at their longtime Central Avenue location, possibly adding a café.
For now, however, the 1,800-square-foot store remains the same as it ever was – filled with gluten-free breads, frozen organic foods, and granola or long-grain rice that can be scooped into bags by the pound.
“We try to have a little bit of everything,” Mulhall says.
The trio acknowledges they knew little about running a business when they launched The Good Seed in 1989.
Kinnel and Hardman are sisters, and they had been friends with Mulhall since high school. In the late 1980s, the three were members of a natural food co-op, receiving bulk orders for family use.
They decided that they should go into business for themselves, and found a storefront on Central Avenue near a busy intersection of Route 152. It was close to their homes.
The new businesswomen contacted United Natural Foods in Connecticut – the same national food distributor that is now moving its headquarters to Providence. “Their doors opened wide,” Mulhall says.
The Good Seed was a success from day one. “It just felt right,” Mulhall says now. “The more we knew about natural foods and natural healing, the more we knew we were in the right place.”
The women also chalk up their early survival, in part, to features inside the store that had little to do with organics: They had a copier and a stamp machine, and that’s the way many customers were introduced to the store. “We became like a little postal stop,” Mulhall says. There was no hard sell about the products in the store, but eventually visitors began looking around and grew interested in alternative products that claimed to alleviate things like high cholesterol and arthritis.
Nothing on the shelves has preservatives, artificial ingredients or artificial sweeteners. “No high fructose corn syrup,” Mulhall says.
Because The Good Seed opened before the popularity of organics skyrocketed, its offerings were a rarity in the store’s early years. Loyal customers came from communities far outside Seekonk, and many still do.
“We know our customers by name,” says Hardman. “And they know us.”
That’s not to say they don’t see new customers. New faces often appear when studies about the health benefits of a particular homeopathic treatment are released, or when Oprah mentions an organic food or supplement on her TV show.
The latest is acai berry – pronounced ah-sigh-ee – which The Good Seed has stocked for years as an alternative arthritis treatment that some claim
has immune system-boosting attributes. Mulhall says Oprah recently talked about it helping with weight loss.
The Good Seed also does custom orders. Recently, the owners were able to track down toothpaste without mint at the request of a customer. The women said they hadn’t heard of such a product before the request, but now the product will be placed on the shelves.
While The Good Seed has lasted 20 years, there have been some threats to its survival, the biggest one come earlier this year. In January, they said, sales plummeted as the economy went into a tailspin.
“Everyone everywhere seemed to stop spending money,” says Kinnel. “It was contagious, and we were catching it.”
But things have recovered quite nicely and sales figures are on now on a record pace, Mulhall says.
The “threat” from Whole Foods also has proved to be nothing. In fact, the supermarket at times has referred customers to The Good Seed.
And Kinnel acknowledges that she shops there for meat and produce, which The Good Seed doesn’t carry.
“We complement each other,” she says. •

COMPANY PROFILE
The Good Seed
OWNERS: Ruth Hardman, Sue Kinnel and Christine Mulhall
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Natural food market
LOCATION: 138 Central Ave, Seekonk
EMPLOYEES: 3 full time, 4 part-time
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1989
ANNUAL SALES: WND