Newport’s long-standing natural food store celebrates another anniversary on Saturday • YachatsNews.com

By GRETCHEN AMMERMAN/Oregon Coast TODAY

After moving to Oregon’s Central Coast nearly 20 years ago for a job in Newport, I asked my new coworkers for recommendations for a nearby place to get a hearty and healthy lunch. Several wisely recommended the hot food and salad bar at Oceana Natural Food Cooperative.

With indoor and outdoor seating, the cooperative is a popular meeting place for people who appreciate the extensive and daily changing offerings.

“We try to accommodate as many different dietary preferences as possible,” says manager Rhonda Fry. “We have vegetarian or vegan comfort food that people who normally eat meat can eat, but we also have dishes that have meat in them. If we put Canadian bacon on the pizza, it’s gone in minutes. We try to make sure that at least one of the soups is dairy-free.”

The dishes at the hot food and salad counter as well as the delicious treats in the dessert department are all prepared on site and are particularly appealing to people with food allergies.

“One thing that makes us unique is that we list all of the ingredients in each of our products,” Fry said. “Today we even had a customer who was allergic to garlic, so people really appreciate being able to go through everything and make sure there’s something they can eat.”

The supermarket’s large natural food section also appeals to many different shoppers’ needs, but the biggest attraction is the fresh produce section, says Fry.

“We only carry organic products,” Fry said. “When you sell both, there are a lot of regulations that require you to separate them, and we just don’t have that much space, so we decided early on to only sell organic. Today, it’s the top-selling department in the store and a big reason why a lot of people come here.”

In many ways, the credit goes to the fruit and vegetable manager, Fry said.

“He’s very particular and doesn’t want anything on the ground if it doesn’t look good,” she said. “He also grows fruit and vegetables, so we carry the very fresh stuff he grows, too.”

Oceana will host a community appreciation event on Saturday, August 24th from 2-6pm with a free ice cream buffet, live music and a dance performance by Herencia Mexicana at 2:15pm. Booths will offer information on voter registration, Double Up Food Bucks and Oceana memberships. For children, there will be a book reading, balloon man and face painting.

The word “co-op” can mean different things in different stores.

“Some of the co-ops sell shares,” Fry said. “We only have annual dues. The people who pay them have voting rights, special ordering rights and access to monthly member offers. We also have an e-newsletter where we post our member offers. When a person at the checkout has one of these products, the cashier asks if they are a member and applies these offers to them.”

Both customer and employee appreciation are important to Fry, who took over management of the business in 2001.

““I really think that respecting your employees and being open to their suggestions is a good way to run a business,” she said. “I like to listen to people’s ideas on how to improve the business and try to implement them whenever possible.”

The business, Fry added, has high employee retention.

“We have a lot of long-term employees,” she said. “Maybe people go away to study or something, but most of them stay here for quite a long time.”

The 31 people employed at Oceana include truck drivers.

“We have drivers that go to Eugene to pick up things like products from Organically Grown,” Fry said. “We also pick up from various companies in Eugene and deliver to other stores on a route from Eugene to Coos Bay and Lincoln City so we can get reliable deliveries and also save money that way, which we can then pass on to our customers.”

• Oceana Natural Food Cooperative, 159 SE Second St., is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The salad bar is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the hot counter is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to about 2 p.m. For more information, including daily menu options, visit oceanafoods.org or call 541-265-8285.