Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Organic Connection to focus on In-Store experience:

No Longer Offering Home Delivery

Organic Connection began offering home delivery of organic foods more than five years ago. The business very quickly outgrew a home garage and expanded into warehouse space in South Salem.

Based around customers ordering online from our website, the process was simple and efficient. So efficient that often there was no need for direct communication between our customers and us. Place your order online; it's delivered to your home; done.

However, from the standpoint of our business philosophy, home delivery was somewhat unsatisfactory. Even with our weekly newsletter, we had limited communication with our customers, and limited opportunity to present a wider perspective that, we believe, embraces a Philosophy of food, environment and life-style choices that enhance our overall well-being, and that of our planet.

Hence the opening of our retail store in Brewster. We always planned to have our store be very, very different to other health & natural food stores:

  • We are 98% organic with our food offerings (no other store comes close that percentage)
  • We sell and use almost exclusively whole grains and flours (no white flour, no white rice) because they are higher in nutritional value
  • We avoid offering any foods containing cane sugar (not even organic). All sugar processing uses Calcium Hydroxide to clarify - it also changes the pH of the cane juice. Not really a healthy choice
  • We offer a hot & cold prepared food (Deli) department using 98% organic ingredients. Of course! Should it be any other way?
  • We want your shopping experience to be pleasant, social and, even, fun. We try to avoid overstimulating your senses - we're very careful with background music and sales information and impulse buy candy racks.

There is so much more that we plan to offer and provide in our store (healthy cooking classes, documentary viewings & health presentations are just some of the things we have in mind). We would like to focus on Organic Connection becoming a social network hub for people interested in health, well-being and our environment.

We found that we couldn't provide that same focus through home delivery and on that basis are discontinuing that service. The resources that have gone towards order packing, delivery and website e-commerce maintenance will now be able to go towards improving and expanding our retail store environment.

We thank our home delivery customers for their support and encourage them to consider experiencing our retail store in person, and all it has to offer!

Ian Diamond & David Richard
Owners, Organic Connection