Family-owned Goodness Me growing organically
When Janet Jacks’s husband, Scott, was diagnosed with diabetes, she was determined to ensure they would have a long, healthy and happy life together.
Jacks decided a healthier diet—based on natural, organic food—would be key in improving Scott’s health.
When she couldn’t find what she needed in shops around her home in Hamilton, she decided to start her own organic-focused grocery store, called “Goodness Me!”
The first Goodness Me opened in 1981, with new locations serving a growing customer base in Hamilton and Burlington in the late 1990s, and two more debuting in Waterdown and Brantford in the last couple of years.
This week, the family-owned chain opens its sixth site in Mississauga, with others coming in Guelph and Barrie this fall and a Waterloo store planned for 2015.
“It is probably our most beautiful store yet,” Katie Mitton, marketing director of Goodness Me, said of the Mississauga site, which occupies a building that previously housed a Food Port. “When you walk in you just feel like you’re engulfed by this wonderful, natural atmosphere.”
PHOTO GALLERY: Take a look inside the new Goodness Me location
At 24,000 square feet, the Mississauga store is the chain’s largest store so far, by about 6,000 square feet.
“We had a lot of customers who came from Mississauga to our Burlington store, so we decided to go there to help serve the community and be part of the customer base, because we were being asked for it,” Mitton explained.
The supermarket is packed with a tremendous variety of organic produce, dairy, meat, baked goods, snacks, pet food, cleaning supplies and even make-up that customers have enjoyed at other Goodness Me emporiums. It also has an eatery and a classroom for the hundreds of healthy eating classes the store offers. But the Mississauga location has a few extra features.
“We’ve added a lot of menu items to the eatery (since it’s a larger site), and we have new things like a panini press and an olive bar that we don’t have at our other locations. We’re also adding a juice a smoothie bar, which I think will be great.”
The grand opening is on July 10, with the official ribbon cutting at 2 p.m.