Earth Fare: Food Shopping With Peace of Mind

Build it and they will come. The question for any business, though, is will people still come after that initial I’m-checking-you-out phase is over.

The answer for Earth Fare is a resounding yes. And it’s easy to see why.

I was able to take my daughter, Ella, to the new Viera store the day before it opened to the public. Thank you, Earth Fare, for inviting the EverythingBrevard.com team in to experience the unique model. Why unique? Because when I walked in the place, I had peace of mind.

So many bad things go into our food supply — things like dyes, preservatives and sweeteners. I’ve had stages in my life where I ate as clean as could be, and others where I did not. And there was a huge difference in how my body and mind felt overall based on diet. We put high-octane fuel in performance sports cars, and I like to think of myself as worthy of the best fuel. But sometimes, it’s too easy to not read labels.

I admit I’m not as disciplined as I’d like to be for Ella’s sake. You can’t shield kids from every cookie, cupcake or snack — BUT Earth Fare’s bakery doesn’t use icky dyes. Cue beets for a deeper red coloring.

Walking into Earth Fare and reading their food philosophy on the wall put me at ease. It made me wonder why every company didn’t blockade these negative ingredients from our food.

Earth Fare’s food philosophy

We pledge our food is free of:

• Added hormones
• Artificial fats and trans-fats
• Artificial sweeteners
• Bleached or bromated flour
• Antibiotics
• High fructose corn syrup
• Artificial preservatives
• Artificial colors or flavors

You can read the company’s full “Boot List” at earthfare.com/bootlist/ and then you’ll never have to read a label again — at Earth Fare stores, anyway. How refreshing is that. If you’ve been scanning packaging for the mostly hard-to-pronounce yuckies on the Boot List, imagine how much faster your shopping trips can be now. (Yuckies is not an official word, but it seems to sum up the unnatural things in so much readily available food these days.)

“Our philosophy for 45 years has been what you put in your body becomes you’re being,” Earth Fare CEO Frank Scorpinito said. “Let food be your medicine.

“We look like a grocery store but we’re really a healthcare business,” Scorpinito said. Earth Fare, headquartered in North Carolina, even has a chief medical officer.

And just to reinforce how serious Earth Fare is about booting out all the bad stuff, Scorpinito said they consider their food philosophy like their constitution. And the Boot List is the law.

“Team members are our law enforcement, everyone is deputized. If anyone finds anything in the store that has an item on the Boot List, we’ll give them $50.”

Thanks for making it easier to shop.

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