...the rating system....criterion used for rating the following stores appears on our page food store rating criterion.....the apple ratings (=== ) begin with one apple for stores deemed to be doing a moderate job in providing healthy foods up to four or five apples , which are excellent (and thank goodness we have a few). The computer keyboard does not have a finger figure for the universal sigh of discontent which those stores recieving F or FFratings deserve because of their pathetic and dismal failures. The intent was to grant them either one finger F or two FF's depending on the depth of their depravities. Only City Market/Krogers stooped so low in thier pathetic quality of food and service as to deserve a shopper dropping all packages to clear both hands, facilitating such an adamant level of disgust (thank goodness...although Albertsons and Safeway are underconsideration for lumping into the same heap of corporate big box squalor). Our contact information can be found elsewhere on the website if you have other stores you'd recommend for rating.

====Old River Trading Post (Paonia) (970) 527-4740 Greg and Addie Cranson-owners
1561 4110 Drive, Paonia, Co, 81428
comment: "nip and tuck for the best natural foods store in western colorado with
Sun Drop in Grand Junction. Large store, local produce, local baked goods, big
bulk bin selection...harder "n hell to find...worth finding."

====Sun Drop Grocery (Grand Junction) (970) 243-1175
321 Rood Av, Grand Junction, Co 81501
comment: "great market, recently expanded to provide a vegan deli and bulk
foods section, very nice produce section...best managed in the area."

====Moonflower Market (Moab) 39 East 100 North (84532) (435) 259-5712...one of the area's longest standing natural foods markets, one of the best, provided the pattern for Old River Trading Post in Paonia

===Hardin"s (Hotchkiss) (970) 3019
3144 Hwy 92, Hotchkiss, Co (about 4 miles west of Hotchkiss-south of hwy)
comment: " a decent store of long standing, recently new owners (2002) extensive local
produce section of good quality, frozen buffalo (pricey) decent supplies. very good)...watch out for Scott, the owner...and his penchant to help you to death at the expense of your privacy and concentration...store owners elsewhere usually respect the fact that many customers outdate them and know more about food quality.

===Nature's Oasis (Durango) 1123 Camino Del Rio 247-1988 ...large store, decent produce section, lots of bottled remedies (?)

===Durango Natural Foods (Durango) East College Drive between 7th and 8th Ave 247-8129....very nice store, good produce, great staff

=== Sweet Pea's Natural Foods (Lake City) 219 Silver St (right in the urban core) (970) 944-8020 <sweetpeas1@gmail.com>......small store with on site foods to eat there or take out , an energetic and dedicated young lady(Mandy), cute and definatly welcome in Lake City...

 ===Good Health Grocery ((Glenwood Springs)-730 Cooper-one block off main street east- at about 7th (970) 945-0235 ....decent store, heavy on bottled remedies, light on fresh produce

==Season's Harvest(Ridgway) (970) 626-9719 Krista / Tim Stewart- owners
521 Clinton St. (block off hwy midtown to north) Ridgway, Co. 81432-0023
comment: " new store this year (2002) excellent stock choices for small space...
you can get in there and out with dinner, fair trade coffee, small produce and vegy
stock...nice."...note, this store is for sale(june 04)...could be a goldmine if someone upgraded the produce section, relinquished the Rainbow Foods distributor dependency and combined sourcing efforts with Sundrop in Grand Junction...any grocer will tell you that the key to store success is the produce section (which means local organic...and it is available). There is no reason this store couldn't thrive....just needs fresh energy more savey.

= Highland Health Food Store (Montrose) (970) 249-5207
16367 S. Townsend, Montrose, Co, 81401
comments: "basically a vitamin suppliment outlet with some food in package and
bulk, no produce...your biggest fear is being "helped" to death.

***note- the NoGMO irony of the western slope is Montrose with a population base
of 15,000 supporting no real natural food store...Paonia with a population base of
800 supports 3. Rumors are help is on the horizon...how anyone missed this marketing
opportunity so pathetically for so long remains a mystery...perhaps soon to be solved.

=Montrose Health Store (where else?) (970) 249-9789
30 North Selig, Montrose, Co 81401
comments: "it's there."

(unrated- Manna Natural Foods 195 W. Main Cedaredge 856-7372)

(Note...the following are shown here only as a sad commentary to quality erosion regionally, having plummeted in a two year period from a two star rating to zero....)

Clark's- Telluride...pathetically degenerated from a once passable market to a Kroeger's /City Market look alike...just like the rest of the regional Clarks chain...a sad commentary on the degenerating quality of regional food sources and corporate standards decay. Years ago, Telluride hosted a food coop of two to three star quality. Now, there is no significant availability of organic or regional food sourcing left...indicative of the factor we see in all other areas of regional culture...that growth dilutes the quality of mentality and taste, imports a slob population base and the hope that increased money in an area is accompanied by increased quality turns out to be just the opposite...a spinoff of the legacy of corporate capitalism, which guts the quality core of about anything it touches.

Clark's- Carbondale...now closed...this is not progress.

Clark's- Aspen ...this one is the worst of all, now degenerated into a noticably ratty and toxic environment from a once quite decent store...prediction is the Clarks chain won't last another 3 or 4 years...when are we going to see an end to the endless greed motivated, incompetent corporate buyout of reputable small town businesses only to vanish leaving us with nothing but ghetto burn and indigestion?

"the bottom line"
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
"we really do not recommend that you shop below this line unless absolutly necessary"

F Mountain Market-Ridgway

F Village Market-Telluride

FF All Kroger's/ King Supers/ City Markets (please note that this regional chain......
in its day was a reasonable, community store that took care of its employees, supported
local truck farmers, provided excellent produce, meats, etc. Since its purchase by the
front range corporation of Kroger's/ King Soopers....it has plummeted in quality,
alienated locals, disbanded all local autonomy, undertaken sabatoge stocking
practices, instigated fraudulent "savings cards" programs, exported all profits,
and we're left with inedible foods...80% of which are GMO's and no response
to stocking requests or management/policy input. The stocking of Coleman Natural beef, once affordable, good quality and taste, is now sporadic, horribly marbled, ridiculously sized packaging, ridiculously over priced and often reduced to
hamburger only...noticably simultaneous with the arrival on the shelves of Krogers new
meat brand (typical sabatoge marketing).
The organic or good quality products which have disappeared from these stores replaced by "Kroger's Krap" is unlistable here...litteraly into the hundreds of items....not to mention their building of expensive, poorly placed new stores, promoting regional sprawl...none of which are producing profits justifying their construction and the resulting traffic and pollution they create.
It is inconcievable that in an age of escalating emphasis and demand for
organics, this store stystem has eliminated them systematically over the past five
years to curtail competition with the "Krogers" line of pathetic food products.
(Proof conclusive that evolution also runs backwards)
The culminating experience substantiating what had been the conclusion
about why this was happening occured two years ago sitting in the Glenwood
Springs Pool next to four frontrange men...one who turned out to be from the
food distribution department at Albertsons...the other from the same department
at Krogers (City Market). They were discussing thier favorite (mostly frozen) food
brands with quite a level of experience...since they had access to all the samples they
wanted for free. Systematically they were naming brand names that were of
excellent quality that had disappeared off both store's shelves. The City Market guy
was heard to say, "Ya, they get a supplier for cheap vegetables, package it under
the Krogers/King Soopers lable and then start either reducing the other stock,
(competitors) moving it somewhere else where no one can find it or just dropping
it altogether....you know ...sabatoge stocking." (as far as we know..this was where
the term was born...certainly it explains the plummeting level of food products we find on their shelves.).
Consistently, it remains beyond these stores' integrity and intelligence to lable
GMO foods, ones containing pesticides, radiated products or location of origins.
They maintain a fraudulent "City Market Card" program deluding customers
into thinking they're saving money. The fact is that with the introduction of this
program (which does nothing but get you on their junk mailing list...at the cost of
thousands of trees each year)...the costs of the program...manufacturing plastic cards,
expensive computer programs, staff training, publication of literature, administration
costs...were all born by the customes with small, across the board price increases for
products all over the store...which escaped the publics scrutiny, being below their
radar(in three spot surveys, we documented up to 3% across the board total food bill
increases following introduction of these infuriating cards). They work like the lottery...
by bilking an endless supply of non-scrutinizing shoppers by offering a big prize once
in a while that produces the illusion of overall savings. The millions of shopper hours
we've lost to standing in longer lines while this program is administered...people
searching purses for lost cards, stopping to fill out forms in line...arguing about
prices...cannot be estimated. Under German marketing controls, this program would
be illegal.
One tenth the budget needed to administer this phony program could be spent on consumer education about GMO's, lactose intollerance, organics and we'd all be
healthier, smarter and the public integrity/image of Kroger's Krap might actually
start heading back up again.
There is an excellen story about the antidote to this "corporate bloat and
pillaging", which is happening all over the world. It comes from Ashland Oregon,
where an old grocer (similair to the one who started City Market here) got sick
of seeing what the big box corporate baboons were doing to his stores (which he'd
sold). He bought one of them back and slipped back in under the radar...with guess what..
the same formula he opened the stores with two generations ago...good quality
local produce, local ownership, local staff, everything fresh made inhouse, organics,
local natural beef. Guess what...you can't get in there with a shoe spoon. We could do
this here in western colorado...encourage the City Market employees to form their
own corporation, get funding, buy out Krogers and give us back home town grocery
stores again....this would work.

(Note-the big box, sprawl, low quality, GMO practices Kroger's/ City Market has stooped to also apply equally to Albertsons and Safeway......although recently, a single report has been filed of a decent organics section in the new Delta Safeway with "Safeway" brand organics...a possibly suspicious phenomenon none-the-less bearing investigation perhaps....but then on the other side the pathetically stocked "organics island" which was once the shivering little neglected bastion of decent food in Montrose in the Montrose "Big Box" food chain nightmare last year croaked and faded from existence completly. If these bloated corporations spent one percent of the money, time and energy educating and stocking organics they spend on marketing hype and store rearrangement, we might have a grocery business that supports rather than destroys western colorado health...by the way 67% of Americans are now over weight...bloated by bodies screaming for nutrients no longer supplied by chemical agriculture and the big box food chain)