Source: LOHAS Weekly Newsletter
Published: Wednesday, October 01, 1997

BEAUMONT, TX—An investor group including a number of medical professionals has opened Basic Foods in Beaumont, TX. At 11,500 sq. ft., the store is the first of a chain planned for smaller cities and towns in TX, LA, OK and AR, says Jimmy Smith, general manager of Basic Foods.

“We feel we are not in a position to go head-on against retail leader Whole Foods Market,” Smith says. “Where Whole Foods is concentrating on larger cities, such as Austin, Houston and Dallas, we will focus on the smaller towns. There are 120,000 people in Beaumont and 500,000 within a 50-mile radius. That’s what we’re looking at.”

The store is located in a strip center in an affluent area on the western end of the city and includes a full grocery selection, dietary supplements, frozen foods, produce, prepackaged meats, and a juice bar, salad bar and sandwich bar.

While Basic Foods is Smith’s first foray into the natural foods industry, he has worked for 28 years in the grocery business, most recently for HEB in San Antonio.

“If the company stays with its medium-size format, keeps its store-opening costs down, and maintains a strategy of going into towns with a population of about 100,000, it will meet with success,” says Kelly McDaniel, principal of Touchstone Natural Products Marketing, an Austin-based brokerage.

“Beaumont is a medical center for southeast Texas, with lots of people with discretionary income and highly degreed professionals interested in taking care of their health,” McDaniel says. “Theoretically, Basic Foods could also go to towns in Texas with a similar demographic, such as Galveston, Corpus Christi and Clear Lake City, a NASA suburb to the far south of Houston.”

Basic Foods, owned by a limited partnership of 26 investors, has plans to open 10 to 15 stores in the next five years, Smith says.